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Abstract: In what way were the first public museums used and, specifically, the Capitoline Museums, which are generally considered the first «public» museum in the world? In what sense were they «public», what was the type of management, the opening hours, who was granted entrance, what was the opinion of the visitors? This study begins from these questions. By using a specific case and experimenting a research method on the public use of past museums, it covers the mutation which occurred between the eighteenth and nineteenth century, from the concept of a museum for the exclusive benefit of an elite to that of a museum for the middleclass, its widespread use being the very reason for its existence. The research covers the period from the official institution of the «Statue Gallery» in the Campidoglio (1734) until Rome’s annexation to Italy in 1870. Diverse sources have been used, especially travel literature, due to the impossibly of verifying data regarding the «public field» during the eighteenth and nineteenth century.