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Naples National Archaeological Museum

 
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Naples National Archaeological Museum
 
 
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The Naples National Archaeological Museum (Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli) is located in Naples, Italy, at the northwest corner of the original Greek wall of the city of Neapolis. The museum contains a large collection of Roman artifact
Artifact (archaeology)

In archaeology, an artifact or artefact is any object made or modified by a human archaeological culture, and often one later recovered by some archaeological endeavor....
s from Pompeii
Pompeii

Pompeii is a ruined and partially buried Ancient Rome town-city near modern Naples in the Italy region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei....
, Stabiae
Stabiae

Stabiae was an ancient Ancient Rome town, located close to the modern town of Castellammare di Stabia approximately 4.5 km southeast of Pompeii....
 and Herculaneum
Herculaneum

Herculaneum is an ancient Roman Empire town, located in the territory of the current commune of Ercolano. Its ruins can be found at the co-ordinates , in the Italy region of Campania....
. The collection includes works of the highest quality produced in Greek
Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
, Roman
Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
 and Renaissance
Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe....
 times.

Collections The museum hosts extensive collections of Greek and Roman antiquities.






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The Naples National Archaeological Museum (Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli) is located in Naples, Italy, at the northwest corner of the original Greek wall of the city of Neapolis. The museum contains a large collection of Roman artifact
Artifact (archaeology)

In archaeology, an artifact or artefact is any object made or modified by a human archaeological culture, and often one later recovered by some archaeological endeavor....
s from Pompeii
Pompeii

Pompeii is a ruined and partially buried Ancient Rome town-city near modern Naples in the Italy region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei....
, Stabiae
Stabiae

Stabiae was an ancient Ancient Rome town, located close to the modern town of Castellammare di Stabia approximately 4.5 km southeast of Pompeii....
 and Herculaneum
Herculaneum

Herculaneum is an ancient Roman Empire town, located in the territory of the current commune of Ercolano. Its ruins can be found at the co-ordinates , in the Italy region of Campania....
. The collection includes works of the highest quality produced in Greek
Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
, Roman
Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
 and Renaissance
Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe....
 times.

History


Collections

The museum hosts extensive collections of Greek and Roman antiquities. Their core is from the Farnese Collection, which includes a collection of engraved gems (including the Farnese Cup
Farnese Cup

The Farnese Cup is a 2nd century BC cameo cup of Hellenistic Egypt in four-layered sardonyx agate. It is 20cm wide....
, a Ptolemaic
Ptolemaic

Ptolemaic is the adjective formed from the name Ptolemy.This adjective is usually used in one of three ways:*To describe the Egyptian dynasty founded in 305 BC by Ptolemy I Soter...
 bowl made of sardonyx agate
Agate

Agate is a microcrystalline variety of quartz , chiefly chalcedony, characterised by its fineness of grain and brightness of color. Although agates may be found in various kinds of rock, they are classically associated with volcanic rocks but can be common in certain metamorphic rocks....
 and the most famous piece in the "Treasure of the Magnificent", and is founded upon gems collected by Cosimo de' Medici
Cosimo de' Medici

C?simo di Giovanni degli M?dici , was the first of the Medici political dynasty, de facto rulers of Florence during most of the Italian Renaissance; also known as "Cosimo 'the Elder'" and "Cosimo Pater Patriae."...
 and Lorenzo il Magnifico in the 15th century) and the Farnese Marbles.

Building

Charles III of Spain
Charles III of Spain

Charles III was list of Spanish monarchs 1759?88 , King of Kingdom of Naples and Kingdom of Sicily 1735?59 , and Duchy of Parma 1732?35 . He was a proponent of enlightened absolutism....
 founded the museum in the 1750s. The building he used for it had been erected as a cavalry barracks and during its time as the seat of the University of Naples (from 1616 to 1777) was extended, in the late 1700s.

Collections

Among the notable works found in the museum are:

Marbles

The greater part of the museum's classical sculpture collection largely comes from the Farnese Marbles, important since they include Roman copies of classical Greek sculpture, which are in many cases the only surviving indications of what the lost works by ancient Greek sculptors such as Calamis, Kritios
Kritios

Kritios was an Athenian sculptor, probably a pupil of Antenor, working in the early 5th century BCE, whose manner is on the cusp of the Late Archaic and the Severe style of Early Classicism in Attica....
 and Nesiotes. Many of these works, especially the larger ones, have been moved to the Museo di Capodimonte
Museo di Capodimonte

The Palace and Museum of Capodimonte is a grand House of Bourbon palazzo in Naples, Italy, formerly the summer residence and hunting lodge of the kings of the Two Sicilies....
 for display in recent years.

  • The Farnese Hercules
    Farnese Hercules

    The Farnese Hercules is an ancient sculpture, probably an enlarged copy made in the early third century AD by Glykon of an original of Lysippos or one of his circle, of the fourth century BC., made for the Baths of Caracalla in Rome , where it was recovered in 1546....
    , which fixed the image of Hercules
    Heracles

    In Greek mythology, Heracles or Herakles meaning "glory of Hera", or "Glorious through Hera" Alcides or Alcaeus " was a hero, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus....
     in the European imagination.
  • The Farnese Atlas
    Farnese Atlas

    The Farnese Atlas is a 2nd-century Roman marble copy of a Hellenistic sculpture of Atlas kneeling with a globe weighing heavily on his shoulders....
     is the oldest extant depiction of Atlas
    Atlas (mythology)

    In Greek mythology, Atlas was the primordial Titan who supported the heavens. Atlas was the son of the Titan Iapetus and the Oceanid Asia or Klym?ne :...
     from Greek mythology, and the oldest view of the Western constellations, possibly based upon the star catalog of Hipparchus
    Hipparchus

    Hipparchus, the common Latinization of the Greek Hipparkhos, can mean:* Hipparchus, the ancient Greek astronomer** Hipparchic cycle, an astronomical cycle he created...
  • The Farnese Bull
    Farnese Bull

    The Farnese Bull is a massive sculpture attributed to the Rhodian artists Apollonius of Tralles and his brother Tauriscus. We know this thanks to the writings of Pliny the Elder....
    , widely considered the largest single sculpture ever recovered from antiquity
    Ancient history

    Ancient history is the history from the History of writing until the Early Middle Ages in Europe, the Qin Dynasty in China, the Chola Empire in India, and some less defined point in the rest of the world ....
    .
  • The group Harmodius and Aristogeiton
    Harmodius and Aristogeiton (sculpture)

    A sculpture of the tyrannicides Harmodius and Aristogeiton is well-known in the ancient world from two major versions and Roman copies....
    , a Roman copy of a bronze work that once stood in the Agora
    Ancient Agora of Athens

    The Ancient Agora of Athens is the best-known example of agora, located in Ancient Athens, Greece....
     of Athens
    Athens

    Athens , the Capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the List of cities by time of continuous habitation, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
  • The Venus Kallipygos
    Venus Kallipygos

    The Callipygian Venus or Venus Kallipygos, , is a type of nude female statue of the Hellenistic era. In an example of anasyrma, it depicts a partially-draped woman, raising her light peplos to uncover her hip #Cultural significance of hips and buttocks, and looking back and down over her shoulder, perhaps to evaluate them....
  • The Farnese Artemis, again a Roman copy of a Greek original
  • a collection of busts of Roman emperors
  • another set of Roman sculptures (again mainly copies of Greek work) that (like the Hercules) once stood in the Baths of Caracalla
    Baths of Caracalla

    The Baths of Caracalla were Ancient Rome public baths, or thermae, built in Rome between AD 212 and 216, during the reign of the Caracalla....
     in Rome
    Rome

    Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with 2,724,347 residents in an urban area of some ....
    .


Bronzes from the Villa of the Papyri
Villa of the Papyri

The Villa of the Papyri is a private house in the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum . Situated north-west of the township, the residence sits halfway up the slope of the volcano Vesuvius without other buildings to obstruct the view....



Mosaics

The museum's Mosaic Collection includes a number of important mosaic
Mosaic

Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other material. It may be a technique of Decorative arts, an aspect of interior decoration or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral....
s recovered from the ruins of Pompeii
Pompeii

Pompeii is a ruined and partially buried Ancient Rome town-city near modern Naples in the Italy region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei....
 and the other Vesuvian cities.

Egyptian Collection


The museum has the third largest collection of Egyptian artifacts
Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an Ancient history civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile in what is now the modern nation of Egypt....
 in Italy, after the Vatican Museum and the Museo Egizio
Museo Egizio

The Museo Egizio is a museum in Turin, Italy, specialising in Art of Ancient Egypt archaelogy and anthropology. It is home to what is regarded as one of the largest collections of Egyptian antiquities outside of Egypt....
 in Turin
Turín

Tur?n is a municipality in the Ahuachap?n Department Departments of El Salvador of El Salvador....
. It is made up primarily of works from two private collections, assembled by Cardinal Borgia
Borgia

The Borgias or Borjas were an Italy noble family of Kingdom of Valencia origin remembered today for their corrupt rule of the Papacy during the Renaissance....
  in the second half of the 18th century, and Picchianti in the first years of the 19th. In the recent rearrangement of the galleries the two nuclei have been exhibited separately, while in the connecting room other items are on display, including Egyptian and "pseudo-Egyptian" artefacts from Pompeii and other Campanian sites. In its new layout the collection provides both an important record of Egyptian civilization from the Old Kingdom (2700-2200 B.C.) up to the Ptolemaic-Roman era.

Secret Cabinet

  • The Secret Cabinet, a separately housed collection of erotic Roman art.
  • The Placentarius, the small bronze statue represents a distinctly ithyphallic old nude man who, on the palm of his hand, holds a little silver tray.


External links