National Museum of Rome
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The National Museum of Rome (Museo Nazionale Romano in Italian) is a set of museums in Rome, Italy, split between various branches across the city. It was founded in 1889 and inaugurated in 1890, during the Risorgimento, with the aim of collecting antiquities from between the 5th century BC to the 3rd century AD.
Its first collection was formed from the archeological collections of the Museo Kircheriano and the numerous new discoveries in Rome during the city-planning after it became the new capital of the new Kingdom of Italy. This was initially meant to be displayed in a 'Museo Tiberino' (never realised), but in 1901 the State granted the institution the Villa Ludovisi and the important national collection of ancient sculptures.
Its base was established in the 16th century cloister built by Michelangelo off the baths of Diocletian, still its main base. These buildings' adaptation to their new purpose began for the 1911 Exposition and completed in the 1930s.
In 1990s, in a radical transformation, the museum's collections were divided between four different sites.
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[edit] Crypta Balbi
[edit] History of the building
In 1981, digging on a derelict city-centre site in the Campus Martius between the churches of Santa Caterina dei Funari and San Stanislao dei Polacchi, Daniel Manacorda and his team discovered the colonnaded quadriporticus of the Theatre of Lucius Cornelius Balbus, the nearby statio annonae and evidence of later, medieval occupation of the site. These are presented in this branch, inaugurated in 2001, which houses the archaeological remains and finds from that dig (including a stucco arch from the porticus).
[edit] Collections
As well as new material from the excavations, objects in this museum come from
- the collections of the former Kircherian Museum
- the Gorga and Betti collections
- numismatic material from the Gnecchi collections and the collection of Vittorio Emanuele III of Savoia,
- collections from the Roman Forum, in particular a fresco and marble architrave from the late-1930s Fascist deconstruction of the medieval church of Sant'Adriano in the Curia senatus.
- Museum of the Palazzo Venezia
- the Capitoline Museums
- the communal Antiquarium of Rome
- frescoes removed in 1960 from the church of Santa Maria in Via Lata
[edit] Basement
The archaeological remains, guided by a member of museum staff.
[edit] Ground floor
The first section ("Archaeology and history of an urban landscape") presents the results of the excavations, and puts them in the context of the history of the area. As well as the remains from the site itself, this section also tells of the Monastero di Santa Maria Domine Rose (begun nearby in the 8th century), of medieval merchants' and craftsmen's homes, of the Conservatorio di Santa Caterina dei Funari (built in the mid-16th century by Ignatius of Loyola to house the daughters of Roman prostitutes) and of the Botteghe Obscura.
[edit] First floor
A second section (" Rome from antiquity to the middle ages.") is the Museum of Medieval Rome and illustrates the life and transformations of Rome as a whole between the 5th and 10th centuries AD.
[edit] Palazzo Altemps
[edit] History of the building
Built in the 15th century by the Riario family and rebuilt by the architect Martino Longhi for the cardinal Marco Sittico Altemps in the 16th century, it was granted by the State to the musueum in 1982 and inaugurated in 1997.
[edit] Collections
It houses the museum's displays on the history of collecting (sculptures from Renaissance collections such as the Boncompagni-Ludovisi and Mattei collections, including the Ludovisi Ares and the Suicide of a Gaul (from the same Pergamon group as the Dying Gaul) and the 'Egyptian Collection (sculptures of eastern deities). The palace also includes also the historic private theatre, at present used to house temporary exhibitions, and the church of Sant' Aniceto.
[edit] Palazzo Massimo alle Terme
[edit] History of the building
On the site of Pope Sixtus V's Villa Peretti (demolished in 1883 after the construction of the nearby train station), the present building was contructed in the neo-cinquecentesco style between 1883 and 1887 by the architect Camillo Pistrucci to house a Jesuit seminary. Used partially as a military hospital during the second world war, it then returned to scholastic functions until 1960. In 1981, by which time it was crumbling, the State acquired it for 19 billion lire and granted it to the museum. Its restoration and adaptation began in 1983. It was inaugurated as part of the museum in 1995 and completed in 1998.
[edit] Collections
It accommodates the sculpture (republican, empire and late empire) and coin/jewelry collections.
[edit] Basement
The Museum's numismatic collections, showing the evolution of currency in Italy. Most of the coins on display in the collections are very rare. It is worth mentioning Theodoric’s medallion, the four ducats of Paul II with the navicella of St Peter, and the silver piastre of the Pontifical State with views of the city of Rome.
One room is also devoted to the mummy that was found in 1964 on the Via Cassia, inside a richly decorated sarcophagus with several artefacts in amber and pieces of jewellery also on display.
[edit] Ground floor and first floor
Sculptures of the period between the late Roman Republic and the early imperial period (2nd century BC to 1st century AD), including the famous Tivoli General and Augustus as pontifex maximus (the latter from Livia's villa on the Via Labicana). Themes explored are Hellenistic influences on Roman art, and the development of the portraiture of the emperors.
[edit] Second floor
Frescoes, stucci and mosaics, including those from the villa of Livia, wife of Augustus, at Prima Porta on the Via Flaminia. It begins with the summer triclinium of Livia's Villa “ad Gallinas Albas”. The frescoes, discovered in 1863 and dating back to the I century BC, show a luscious garden with ornamental plants and pomegranate trees. Each plant and bird species is very lifelike.
Only open to the public on guided tours by museum staff.
[edit] Baths of Diocletian
[edit] Cloister of Michelangelo
Within it, a Sixteenth century Garden and outdoor displays of altars and funerary sculpture and inscriptions.
[edit] Main hall of the baths
Still preserved, and used mainly for temporary exhibitions whilst a permanent exhibition of finds from some some important urban excavations is in preparation.
[edit] "Aula of Saint Isidore"
Former chapel
[edit] Prehistory section
On the first floor
[edit] Epigraphic Section
[edit] Octagonal Aula
Restored in 1991. Devoted to sculptures found on baths sites in Rome, including the bronze Athlete and Boxer from the Baths of Constantine.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
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Museums and art galleries in Rome | edit |
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Capitoline Museums | Doria Pamphilj Gallery | Galleria Borghese | Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica | Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna | Galleria Spada | Museo Nazionale Etrusco | Museum of Roman Civilization | National Museum of Oriental Art | National Museum of Rome | Vatican Museums |
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