Top Five Museums to Visit Before You Die
A trip to the museum can be an exciting activity for a lot of people. Museums hold treasures from a forgotten era, provide a glimpse of history, and help people appreciate the greatness and the wonders of civilizations unknown or long gone. Not to mention the fact that the best museums also feature amazing architecture.
Admittedly, with hundreds of museums scattered all around the world, it is close to impossible to visit each of them. However, here is a list of the top five and the best museums around the globe that you should visit in your lifetime.
1. The Louvre Museum (Paris, France)
The Louvre is probably the most popular museum in the world right now, thanks to several inferences to it from popular works of literature like "The Da Vinci Code." The museum's collection ranges from treasures that go back to antiquity to treasures belonging to the Renaissance Period and to the French masters of the 19th century. The Louvre, according to its official Web site, currently has 35,000 pieces of art that are exhibited in an area more than 60,000 square meters. And there are a lot more in storage.
Those currently in display are categorized into eight departments, including antiquities from all around the world spanning several time periods, prints, drawings, paintings, decorative arts and even Islamic art.
2. Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Netherland's largest and biggest art and history museum, the Rijksmuseum, houses a wide variety of art pieces.
Art lovers, particularly followers of the Dutch masters from the 17th century like Rembrandt, would bask in the museum's collections of masterpieces from these painters, as well as of artworks from the 19th and 18th centuries, and even as far back as the Middle Ages!
Rijksmuseum is currently home to Rembrandt's "The Night Watch."
3. The Vatican Museums (Vatican City, Italy)
With 22 separate collections, The Vatican Museums have pieces that come from ancient times, to the medieval period, the Renaissance, as well as modern times. There are Egyptian and Etruscan pieces and religious artifacts from different time periods. The Vatican Museums are not solely for the religious, as everyone would surely appreciate the beauty of Michelangelo’s dome at the Sistine Chapel and of the spiral columns made by Bernini.
Aside from the Sistine Chapel, places worth visiting at the Vatican Museums include:
* The Raphael Rooms
* The Gallery of Candelabras
* The tapestries housed at the Galleria deli Arazzi, and
* The maps at the Galleria delle Carte Geografiche.
4. The British Museum (London, UK)
The British Museum probably has the greatest pieces of antiques that come from non-European countries and non-European cultures. Art from China and from the Aztec civilization are some of them.
The museum has what is known as the largest collection on Ancient Egypt (outside Cairo), so you can see well-preserved Egyptian mummies. The British Museum also houses The Elgin Marbles, which is a collection of marble sculptures from the classical Greek era. The Rosetta Stone, which was instrumental in learning about hieroglyphs, can also be seen here.
The museum also boasts of a modernized Reading Room. Open to the general public, free of charge, the British Museum was founded on the collection of Hans Sloan. Since 1753, the museum has grown to house more than seven million pieces. Sadly, though, only 4 million are on exhibit.
5. The Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia)
Opened to the public by Nicholas I and currently composed of six full buildings, Russia's The Hermitage houses a collection of three million pieces dating back to the 18th century.
Some of the Hermitage's notable collections include jewelry, silverware and gemstones from Russia, Europe and the Orient, all housed in the Golden Rooms. It also exhibits various art masterpieces, predominantly from Dutch masters, as well as around a dozen Da Vinci’s. You can also see treasures from the personal collections of Russian families and tzars like Peter the Great.
Oh, and let’s not forget the Faberge eggs' collection.
The Hermitage also has prehistoric art on display. Admittedly, this list of five museums is not in any way comprehensive, as there are runners up that are worth visiting as well. If you have the money and the time, you should also visit:
* The Uffizi Gallery (Italy)* The Guggenheim (Spain)
* The National Gallery (USA)
* The Smithsonian (USA)
* The Metropolitan Museum of Art (USA)
* The Egyptian Museum (Egypt)
* The Kunsthistorisches Museum (Austria)
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