Thirty-three feet long, the Codex Borgia records historical, ritual, mythological, and botanical information.
Location City: Vatican City
This cloth—first woven by a wise spider—sends social messages through a system of specific patterns.
Kente cloth
Even in death, great Roman families were concerned with reinforcing and projecting their status.
Tomb of the Scipios and the sarcophagus ...
Whose side are you on? Two great philosophers of antiquity, Plato and Aristotle, face off in this meeting of minds.
Raphael, School of Athens
Ancient Greek athletes cleaned themselves with oil. This sculpture shows one athlete’s bathing ritual.
Lysippos, Apoxyomenos (Scraper)
The writhing agony of the Trojan Laocoon made this Hellenistic masterpiece famous throughout history.
Athanadoros, Hagesandros, and Polydoros of Rhodes, Laocoön ...
With age comes experience, and sculptors in the Roman Republic highlighted seniority—warts and all.
Veristic male portrait
Achilles and Ajax, heroes of the Trojan War, break from battle to play a friendly game that hints at a tragic future.
Exekias, Attic black figure amphora with Ajax ...
As demons harvest new souls and angels wake the dead, Mary crouches, powerless beside Christ.
Michelangelo, Last Judgment, Sistine Chapel
Central to the Counter Reformation, Bernini’s double colonnades activate St. Peter’s and reach out into the city.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, St. Peter’s Square
Did Peter sit here? Dizzying but unified, light and gold glorify this sacred place.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Cathedra Petri (Chair of ...
Togas or tights? Classical dress helps set the Twelve Apostles apart from a bunch of Renaissance men.
Perugino, Christ Giving the Keys of the ...
The greatest minds of the High Renaissance worked on this vast church. Construction took more than a century.
Saint Peter’s Basilica
God created the world in seven days, but it took Michelangelo four years to depict it on this remarkable ceiling.
Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
Nothing was more important to a Roman emperor than his image.
Augustus of Primaporta
Death, memory, and funerary rituals—monumental tombs lined the streets leading into ancient Roman cities.
Roman funeral rituals and social status: The ...
Lighting struck this statue dedicated to the Etruscan god of war, marking it as a particularly sacred object.
Mars of Todi
Made for a member of the Roman elite, this early tomb features Old and New Testament scenes in a classical style.
Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus
Spotlight on Christ! Watching this dramatic scene unfold, we become a part of it, as if already inside the tomb.
Caravaggio, Deposition (or Entombment)
Over 60 feet tall, this daunting bronze canopy is part architecture, part sculpture—and part beehive.