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Ancient Roman Art

Rome's Museo Nazionale Romano (National Roman Museum) is the world's single greatest collection of Ancient Roman art spread across four amazing spaces: Palazzo Altemps, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, the Baths of Diocletian, and the Aula Ottagona

Used to be, I'd tell people looking to get a quick fix of Ancient Roman art to hit the Captoline Museums and Vatican Museums. Since the National Roman Museum reopened at the turn of the century, however, I've changed my tune.

Those two are still great museums, but if you've only the mental energies and interest to make it through one or two collections of ancient Roman statues, frescoes, mosaics, friezes, and scultpure, make a beeline for a branch of the Museo Nazionale Romano—Palazzo Massimo alle Terme if you've only time for one, the Palazzo Altemps if you can squeeze it in.

A Museum Split in Four

A museum with branches? Yeah. Tthe Museo Nazionale Romano is, annoyingly, split across four different major collections (plus one rather bland excavation called the Crypta Balbi).

See, they took what was once a single museum—one that languished for decades in a quasi-mythical state inside the eternally closed Baths of Diocletian—and split it up across the city in four "Museo Nazionale Romano" collections:

Palazzo Massimo alle Terme - Excellent statuary plus exquisite ancient Roman mosaics, bronzes, frescoes, coins, and jewelry in a 19th-century villa near Termini; most boring space, but the best of the collections.... » Full Story

Palazzo Altemps - The Ludovisi, Mattei, and Altemps Collections of Classical statuary in a frescoed Renaissance villa off Piazza Navona; prettiest space by far, second-best collection.... » Full Story

Baths of Diocletian - Installed in the palazzo that was converted out of a portion of the ancient baths complex; intriguing space, least interesting collection.... » Full Story

Aula Ottgona - A separate, single echoing room of that baths complex filled with bathhouse art and colossal statuary; small but mighty collection, most evocative space.... » Full Story


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This material was last updated January 2007. All information was accurate at the time.

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