The four visitors to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum will be greeted by the visual splendor of the courtyard garden and surrounding galleries. The Museum displays an art collection of world importance, including works that rank among the most significant of their type.  Isabella Stewart Gardner collected and carefully displayed a collection comprised of more than 2,500 objects paintings, sculpture, furniture, textiles, drawings, silver, ceramics, illuminated manuscripts, rare books, photographs and  letters from ancient Rome, Medieval Europe, Renaissance Italy, Asia, the Islamic world and 19th-century France and America.