Who we are

About the Sistine Chapel Guide

Sistine Chapel Guide is an independent editorial project that publishes checked, advertising-free information about visiting the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City. We are not affiliated with the Holy See, the Vatican Museums, or any tour operator, and we sell nothing.

Last updated 4 August 2026

Why this site exists

In 2019 our editor spent a morning trying to establish one simple thing: whether a child of seven needed a ticket for the Vatican Museums. Three of the first four results were resale sites quoting prices that did not exist, and the fourth was five years out of date. That gap has not closed. Search results for the Sistine Chapel are dominated by pages designed to sell a 70 euro package for a 20 euro ticket.

We publish the alternative: plain answers, current prices, honest trade-offs, and links to the official Musei Vaticani ticket office rather than to a reseller.

How we check what we publish

Primary sources first. Prices, hours and closure dates come from museivaticani.va and the official ticket office, checked at least monthly and after any announced change.
Art-historical claims are reviewed. Anything about attribution, dating or restoration is reviewed by our art historian against published scholarship, including Vasari, the Vatican Museums restoration reports and museum catalogue entries.
We visit. Our team makes several visits each year and records queue times, route changes and enforcement of the dress code.
We date everything. Every page carries a last-updated date. If a page has not been checked recently, the date says so.
We correct in public. Corrections are made on the page, and significant ones are noted at the foot of the article.

Editorial independence

We run no advertising, take no affiliate commission on tickets or tours, and accept no payment for coverage. Where we recommend booking direct with the Vatican Museums, that is because it is cheaper, not because anyone pays us. If that ever changes, this page will say so before the change goes live.

The team

Elena Moretti

Art historian, reviewer

MA in Renaissance Art from Università di Roma La Sapienza, with fifteen years leading study groups through the Vatican Museums and the Roman Renaissance churches. Elena reviews everything we publish about the frescoes, their dating and their restoration.

Tom Halliwell

Editor

A travel editor of eighteen years, previously commissioning city guides for a UK publisher. Tom handles the practical pages — tickets, routes, accessibility — and does the monthly price and opening-hours checks.

What we do not do

We do not sell tickets or tours, and we never will
We do not republish AI-written summaries of other guides
We do not claim official status; the Vatican Museums are the authority on their own rules
We do not use stock images that misrepresent what a visitor will see

Corrections and contact

If something here is wrong or out of date, tell us. Email corrections@sistinechapel.co or use the contact page, and include the page address. We aim to respond within three working days and to fix confirmed errors the same week.

Start with our practical visiting information, check current ticket prices and opening times, or browse the articles hub.

At a glance

Founded: March 2019
Based: Rome, Italy and Bristol, United Kingdom
Funding: Self-funded; no advertising, no affiliate income
Fact checks: Prices and hours reviewed monthly
Contact: editor@sistinechapel.co

The frescoed ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the subject of this independent visitor guide — The restored ceiling, photographed after the 1980–1994 cleaning campaign.