The Palaces and the Vatican's Treasures The Vatican palaces are
an irregular mass of three-story and four-story buildings, built
on long, plain lines and broken by additions and alterations.
The papal residence and offices occupy the portion near the
colonnade, and the rest is given over to museums and the Vatican
Library. The Vatican museums are among the most important in the
world; they are the Museo Pio-Clementino, founded in the 18th
cent. and containing one of the world's great collections of
antiquities; the Chiaramonti Museum, founded in the early 19th
cent. and holding a collection of Greek sculptures and
Renaissance imitations; the Braccio Nuovo, considered by many to
be the most beautiful of all the museums; the Egyptian Museum
and the Etruscan Museum, opposite the Braccio Nuovo; and the
Pinacoteca Vaticana (opened in 1932), which contains paintings
by Giotto, Guercino, Caravaggio, Poussin, and others. The
museums, however, house only part of the Vatican's treasure, for
many of the Renaissance and