National Archaeological Museum of Naples
Vast collection of finds from Pompeii and Herculaneum plus the Farnese antiquities, in a Bourbon palace.
The museum occupies a seventeenth-century palace built as cavalry barracks and later converted into the university, the Palazzo degli Studi. Ferdinand IV brought together here the Farnese antiquities inherited from his grandmother and the material being dug from Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae, and the Real Museo Borbonico opened in 1816. It passed to the Italian state in 1860, and since 1957 it has concentrated on archaeology after its paintings moved to Capodimonte.
Its holdings include the Farnese Hercules and Farnese Bull, the Alexander Mosaic from the House of the Faun, and the largest surviving group of Roman wall paintings, bronzes and everyday objects from the Vesuvian towns. Other sections cover Egypt, Magna Graecia, epigraphy and numismatics, together with the Gabinetto Segreto of erotic material. The Salone della Meridiana, with its 1781 ceiling fresco and meridian line, crowns the first floor.
Highlights
- Alexander Mosaic from the House of the Faun at Pompeii
- Farnese Hercules and Farnese Bull from the Baths of Caracalla
- Roman wall paintings and bronzes from the Vesuvian towns
- Salone della Meridiana with its 1781 meridian line
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