Capitoline Museums Site Features

The Capitoline Wolf

Rome's symbol, a bronze she-wolf that has just given birth. Long believed an Etruscan work of the fifth century BC; the twins Romulus and Remus were added in the fifteenth century and are attributed to Antonio del Pollaiolo. Some restorers have since argued the wolf itself is medieval, of the twelfth century, and the question is not settled — which makes it a more interesting object, not a lesser one.

The equestrian Marcus Aurelius

The original bronze, indoors since 1996. It survived the Middle Ages because it was mistaken for Emperor Constantine, and so escaped being melted down; the one in the square is a copy matched in volume but not in gilding.

The Colossus of Constantine

Fourth-century fragments in the courtyard — the head, a hand, a foot, a kneecap — from a seated figure that stood in the Basilica of Maxentius. Since February 2024 a full-scale reconstruction has stood in the gardens of Villa Caffarelli, which is what makes the fragments comprehensible.

The Dying Gaul and the Spinario. The first is among the most copied sculptures in Europe; the second, a boy pulling a thorn from his foot, came from the founding 1471 gift.

Arnolfo di Cambio's Portrait of Charles I of Anjou, of 1277. The first lifelike portrait of a living person sculpted in Europe to survive from the post-classical era. It is a genuinely startling object to meet in a room of Roman marble.

The picture gallery and the Mosaic of the Doves

The Pinacoteca Capitolina holds a Caravaggio — the St John the Baptist — among Venetian and Baroque painting. The Mosaic of the Doves is Roman and among the finest surviving examples of its kind.

The Lex de imperio Vespasiani and the Capitoline Brutus,

Both acquired in the second half of the sixteenth century, alongside the statues of Julius Caesar and the Navarch.