5. UFFIZI GALLERY, FLORENCE

The Uffizi Gallery is a prominent art museum located adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy One of the most important Italian museums and the most visited, it is also one of the largest and best known in the world and holds a collection of priceless works, particularly from the period of the Italian Renaissance.

After the ruling house of Medici died out, their art collections were gifted to the city of Florence under the famous Patto di famiglia negotiated by Anna Maria Luisa, the last Medici heiress The Uffizi is one of the first modern museums The gallery had been open to visitors by request since the sixteenth century, and in 1765 it was officially opened to the public, formally becoming a museum in 1865.

4. EGYPTIAN MUSEUM, CAIRO

The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or Museum of Cairo, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display, the remainder in storerooms.

Built in 1901 by the Italian construction company Garozzo-Zaffarani to a design by the French architect Marcel Dourgnon, the edifice is one of the largest museums in the region As of March 2019, the museum is open to the public In 2021 the museum is due to be superseded by the new Grand Egyptian Museum at Giza.

There are two main floors in the museum, the ground floor and the first floor On the ground floor there is an extensive collection of papyri and coins used in the Ancient world The numerous pieces of papyrus are generally small fragments, due to their decay over the past two millennia.

3. BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON

The British Museum, in the Bloomsbury area of London, England, is a public institution dedicated to human history, art and culture Its permanent collection of some eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence, having been widely collected during the era of the British Empire It documents the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present It was the first public national museum in the world.

The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the Irish physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane It first opened to the public in 1759, in Montagu House, on the site of the current building Its expansion over the following 250 years was largely a result of expanding British colonisation and has resulted in the creation of several branch institutions, the first being the Natural History Museum in 1881.

Its ownership of some of its most famous objects originating in other countries is disputed and remains the subject of international controversy, most notably in the case of the Elgin Marbles of Greece and the Rosetta Stone of Egypt.

2. HERMITAGE, ST. PETERSBURG

The State Hermitage Museum is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia The second-largest art museum in the world, it was founded in 1764 when Empress Catherine the Great acquired an impressive collection of paintings from the Berlin merchant Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky.

The museum celebrates the anniversary of its founding each year on 7 December, Saint Catherine's Day It has been open to the public since 1852 It attracted 4,956,524 visitors in 2019, ranking it eighth among the most visited art museums in the world.

Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display, comprise over three million items (the numismatic collection accounts for about one-third of them),
including the largest collection of paintings in the world The collections occupy a large complex of six historic buildings along Palace Embankment, including the Winter Palace, a former residence of Russian emperors.

1. LOUVRE, PARIS

The Louvre  Museum is the world's largest museum and a historic monument in Paris, France A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement (district or ward) Approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 72,735 square meters (782,910 square feet) In 2019, the Louvre received 9.6 million visitors, making it the most visited museum in the world.

The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built as the Louvre castle in the late 12th to 13th century under Philip II Remnants of the fortress are visible in the basement of the museum Due to urban expansion, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function, and in 1546 Francis I converted it into the primary residence of the French Kings.

 The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace In 1682, Louis XIV chose the Palace of Versailles for his household, leaving the Louvre primarily as a place to display the royal collection, including, from 1692, a collection of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture.

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