Cleveland Museum of Art

The Cleveland Museum of Art opened in 1916 with a promise built into its purpose. It would be free, and stay free, for the benefit of all the people forever. More than a century on, its permanent collection still costs nothing to enter, paid for by an endowment built from the fortunes of Cleveland's industrial age.

The money bought quality rather than sheer size. The museum is especially strong in Asian art, with Chinese painting and Indian and Southeast Asian sculpture that rank among the best in the United States, and in medieval treasures, including part of the Guelph Treasure, a hoard of jewelled reliquaries from a German cathedral.

Its single most gripping picture is Caravaggio's Crucifixion of Saint Andrew, in which the old apostle hangs on an X-shaped cross while a soldier on a ladder freezes, unable to take him down. The galleries wrap around a glass-roofed atrium added in 2012, a bright indoor square that has become the city's living room as much as a route between the ancient and modern wings.