Palazzo Massimo alle Terme

About

In 2013, the museum circuit of the Roman National Museum was the 21st most visited Italian state site, with 247,795 visitors and a total gross income of 909,016.50 euros.

Palazzo Massimo was rebuilt between 1883 and 1886 by architect Camillo Pistrucci on the Villa Montalto-Peretti as the site of a college for the Jesuits, which remained there until 1960.

After ups and downs it was purchased by the state in 1981 and restored, based on a design by architect Costantino Dardi. This was made possible by funding from a special law for the protection of the Roman archaeological heritage.

The building has four floors and an underground one, much of which is devoted to the display of the collections, as well as providing a series of offices, a library, and a conference room.

The museum building was opened in 1995 (when only the ground floor was opened) and completed in 1998 with the opening of the first and second floors in addition to the basement.

The exhibition area occupies four of the floors from which the building consists, the other rooms being reserved for offices of the Soprintendenza Speciale Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio di Roma. The museum layout is divided into subsections that illustrate the most important moments in the artistic production of ancient Rome. The museum houses the " ancient art section" with figurative works from the late republican, imperial and late antique periods on the ground floor, first and second floors (including works of art from the great residences of the senatorial order, with Greek originals brought to Rome in ancient times) as well as a " numismatics and goldsmithing section" on aspects of the Roman economy in the basement.

Athena, from Villa Carpegna on the Aurelia (Roman copy from classical Greek original)

See also: Roman Republican art and Augustan and Julio-Claudian art The ground floor houses masterpieces of Roman art, from the late Republican age (with works belonging to the ruling classes of the 2nd-1st centuries B.C.), to the time of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Immediately after the ticket office one encounters a colossal statue of a seated female deity. It comes from the slopes of the Aventine and is composed of numerous types of ancient colored marbles, using a technique highly prized by Roman sculptors. This statue is from the Augustan age and has been restored as Minerva, whose face has been remade in plaster in the likeness of the Athena Carpegna. According to recent studies, however, it seems that the statue depicted Magna Mater -Cybele, an ancient Anatolian deity whose main center of her worship was Pessinus in Phrygia and who, beginning in the Second Punic War, began protecting the Romans.

According to the oracles of the Sibylline Books, the introduction of the Magna Mater cult was a precondition for finally achieving the expulsion of the Carthaginian enemy from Italy. In April 204 B.C., the black stone of Pessinus reached Ostia and was delivered to Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica, cousin of Publius Scipio and son of Gnaeus Scipio.

Floor plan of the ground floor of the Roman National Museum at the Palazzo Massimo

The "Gallery I" displays numerous anonymous male and female portraits. The arrangement evokes a gallery of ancestors, based on what really happened in the dwellings and funerary monuments of ancient Rome. These portraits include that of an elderly woman (from Palombara Sabina ) and of a mid-1st century B.C. priest of Isis (found in the Tiber ), characterized by a shaved head and a typical vertical scar. The stern and strong-willed portrait proves the spread of the Egyptian cult in Rome, often opposed by the nobilitas, eventually imposed in the capital by the association of Isis with the goddess Fortuna.

Bust of a priest of Isis (h. 33 cm; datable to the first decades of the 1st century BC).

Male portrait of 75-50 B.C. from Palestrina

Portrait of elderly woman (from Palombara Sabina ; h. 32 cm; late 1st century BC).

Also in "Gallery I," one finds the center of a mosaic floor of a Roman villa (Tor Bella Monaca, Rome), which depicted an episode from the Argonauts myth, in which Hylas, the young companion of Hercules, draws water and a Nymph is about to drag him into the spring.

Central panel of the floor mosaic of a Roman villa, with Hylas and the nymphs (late 2nd century BC - early imperial period)

"Room I" contains a series of portraits of the ruling class ( nobilitas ) from the Republican period (prior to the Caesarian era ). They follow two main trends: on the one hand those faithful to the realism of the Italic tradition, and on the other those that were influenced by Hellenism. Among the latter is the virile portrait from the Via Barberini in Rome and depicts a general of the first half/end of the second century BCE, identified by some scholars as Lucius Aemilius Paullus, the victor of Pydna (168 BCE), by others as Titus Quinctius Flamininus, the victor of Cynoscephalae. The masterpiece of late republican portraiture is the statue of the so-called "General of Tivoli" (from the sanctuary of Hercules the Victor, from the beginning of the first century BCE). The portrait is among those faithful to the realism of the Italic tradition.

Male portrait in Hellenistic style that some scholars have identified as Aemilius Paulus, others as Flaminius.

The "General of Tivoli" (detail of the head)

This room also contains the Fasti Antiates, i.e., two frescoed panels found near Nero's Villa at Anzio, dating to the period 88 to 55 BCE and containing the Roman calendar of Numa Pompilius, which preceded the reform of Gaius Julius Caesar, including Roman festivals and a list of the main magistracies, such as that of consuls and censors from the period 173 to 67 BCE.