The Palazzo Massimo alle Terme is the main of the four sites of the Roman National Museum, along with the original site of the Baths of Diocletian, which currently houses the epigraphic and protohistoric section, Palazzo Altemps, home to the Renaissance collections of ancient sculpture, and the Crypta Balbi, home to the early medieval collection.
It is located in the Esquilino district, near Termini Station.
Visitors 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.Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali, Visitatori e introiti dei musei
History 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 Museum and the collections on display 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.
Ground floor
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.
Gallery I (ground floor) 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..
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.
Room I (ground floor) "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..
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.
Room II (ground floor)
In "Room II," the exhibition continues chronologically and shows images between the Caesarian and Augustan ages, when alongside the realist tendencies are found the new classicist one, especially sought by Octavian Augustus..
Also included in the "room" is a togated funerary stele, in which the representation of a ring in the left hand probably indicates membership in the equestrian order. This kind of funerary relief was also used by the freedmen, a now emerging class. The funerary relief of the Rabirii, which came from the Appian Way, shows three figures, including a pair of freedmen (Caius Rabirius Hermodorus and Rabiria Demaris), related to their patron, a certain Gaius Rabirius Postumus, a knight of the Caesarian age, defended by Cicero in his work Pro Rabirius Postumus. The third figure portrays a certain Usia Prima (who may represent a descendant of the couple and was added in the first century CE) and depicts her as a priestess of Isis.
Also in this room can be found epigraphic fragments of a calendar, the Fasti Praenestini, affixed in Praeneste, and illustrating an Augustan-era calendar in which Caesar's reform of the 365-day year had by then taken effect..
Gallery II (ground floor) On display in "Gallery II" are a loricate acephalous statue (in military garb) from the Antonine age and two altars dedicated to imperial worship.
Room III (ground floor) The room is temporarily being refurbished.It hosted the exhibition on the silverware from the so-called treasure of Morgantina: official page of the exhibition on the website of the MIBAC.
Room IV (ground floor)
"Room IV" collects a series of marble and bronze portraits during the period of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, starting with the realistic portrait of Gaius Octavius, father of Octavian Augustus, as well as the latter's youthful portrait, which is influenced by Hellenistic sculpture. There are also a series of classicistic portraits of his possible heirs (from Drusus the Elder, to Germanicus Julius Caesar), to his royal successors (Tiberius and Caligula).
The image of the imperial family also profoundly influenced that of private citizens, whose statues adopted not only the same hairstyles as the various princepes, but also the same physiognomies. Women's fashion of that period was also dictated by the princesses of the dynasty, such as Octavia (Octavian's sister), Livia, Antonia and the two Agrippines..
Also in the room is a statue of a young girl from Ostia, depicted as the goddess Artemis, a symbol of hunting, animals and archery, as well as being the goddess of female initiations.
Room V (ground floor)
The portraits of the Julio-Claudian dynasty in "room IV" are complemented by others in "room V," as well as the statue known as Augustus of Via Labicana, a portrait of Emperor Augustus as pontifex maximus, found in what was Livia's villa near Via Labicana.
There is also a marble altar dedicated to Mars and Venus from ancient Ostia. This altar is dated to the first half of the second century CE and commemorated the ancestor gods of the Roman people: the former as the father of Romulus, the latter as the mother of Aeneas, as reflected in the image of Romulus and Remus suckled by the she-wolf, carved on one of the facades of the altar.
Also in "room V" is part of the historical frieze of the Basilica Aemilia in the Roman Forum. It was found in numerous fragments during various excavations. It is 0.76 meters high. The frieze is an early example of the reception of Hellenistic models in the Roman sphere, predating the spread of Neo-Atticism, which flattened Roman art toward a colder and more academic reproduction of classical Greek art models. The dating of the work is highly controversial, oscillating between the Sullan-Caesarian and Augustan ages. However, opinions regarding the later periods are discardable on the basis of stylistic elements, making a time span between the early and late first century B.C. likely.
The frieze originally measured more than one hundred meters, where an account of the entire Roman history starting from the primordia was depicted.
Finally, there is a painted frieze, coming from the Esquiline and found in 1875 in the area of the Porta Maggiore square, which depicted a small columbarium of the powerful family of Titus Statilius Taurus. The scenes depicted are 38 cm high and are bordered by a dark red band and divided into several episodes, starting with Aeneas, the meeting between Mars and Rhea Silvia, and the birth of the twins, Romulus and Remus..
Gallery III (ground floor)
From here on, "Gallery III" begins a series of copies of Greek portraits. One finds busts of philosophers such as Socrates, of poets such as Hesiod, of rulers such as Philip V of Macedon, as well as athletes such as the Boxer from the villa at Genazzano. There is also a fine gilded bronze portrait of Alexander the Great, recognizable by the characteristic arrangement of the hair on his forehead. The work belongs to the imperial era, which was also extremely popular in the Roman world.
The arrangement of the portraits one behind the other is reminiscent of the galleries of illustrious Greeks that often furnished Roman domus, used as exempla (examples of behavior).
There is also along the gallery a depiction of a cat catching a bird (upper part) and two ducks in the lower part, from a villa along the Via Ardeatina (first century B.C.) with very small tiles (opus vermiculatum). The subject and technique are in the Hellenistic tradition.
Room VI (ground floor) On display in "Room VI" are two works of Greek art that decorated the Horti Sallustiani, a property that was first owned by Gaius Julius Caesar, then by Gaius Sallustius Crispus, and finally by the imperial family, as evidence of the Roman civilization's love for Hellenic art. Many of the masterpieces found in the area, and which came from the Ludovisi collection, are now on display at the Roman National Museum in Palazzo Altemps. A couple, however, are displayed in this room of the Palazzo Massimo. They are: