MUSEO NAZIONALE ROMANO
The National Museum of Rome (MNR) is split across five sites. Much of the sculpture is at Palazzo Altemps (pp204–5), while some of the best individual pieces, mosaics, and frescoes are at Palazzo Massimo alle Terme (this page). Aula Ottagona has oversize bathhouse statues and the Baths of Diocletian house the epigraphic and stele collection. Crypta Balbi features remnants of ancient Roman city blocks and a 13 BCE portico.
NEED TO KNOW
Palazzo Massimo alle Terme: Largo di Villa Peretti 1; 06 3996 7700; open 9am–7:45pm Tue–Sun, closed Jan 1 & Dec 25
Palazzo Altemps: Piazza Sant’Apollinare 46; 06 3996 7700; open 9am–7:45pm Tue–Sun, closed Jan 1 & Dec 25 • Adm $13.50; extra $3.50 for exhibitions; free first Sun of the month • The ticket (valid for 3 days) gives admission to all Museo Nazionale Romano sites
- From Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, walk down Via Nazionale for bars and restaurants. After exploring Palazzo Altemps, go to Tre Scalini, 28 on Piazza Navona, for refreshments.
- Call ahead for Palazzo Massimo alle Terme tickets, as the frescoes and mosaics on the top floor are timed-entry only.
Gallery Guide
Palazzo Massimo alle Terme exhibits its Republican and Early Imperial Rome (up to Augustus) statuary on the ground floor, along with a few older Greek pieces. The first floor art exhibits reflect the political, cultural, and economic spheres of Imperial Rome up to the 4th century. The second floor, which requires a timed-entry ticket, displays ancient mosaics and frescoes. In the basement, the numismatic collection illustrates the history of money from its origins. There is also gold jewelry and a mummified eight-year-old girl.
1. Statue of Augustus
The statue of Rome’s first emperor once stood on Via Labicana. It shows him wearing his toga draped over his head—a sign that, in 12 CE, he added the title Pontifex Maximus (high priest) to the list of honors he assigned himself.
2. Boats of Nemi
These elaborate bronzes (including lions, wolves, and a head of Medusa) once decorated the two luxury boats that Emperor Caligula kept on the Lake of Nemi. The boats, used for parties, even had central heating.
3. House of Livia
These frescoes (20–10 BCE) depicting a lush garden came from the villa of Augustus’s wife, Livia. They were in the triclinium, a dining room half-buried to keep it cool in summer.
4. Leucotea Nursing Dionysus
Discovered in 1879, a luxuriously frescoed villa included this bedroom scene of a nymph nursing the wine god, with additional scenes in the niches.
5. Wounded Niobid
Sculpted around 440 BCE for a Greek temple and later acquired by Julius Caesar, this hauntingly beautiful figure of Niobid (daughter of Queen Niobe) is reaching for the fatal arrow that killed her siblings.
6. Discus Thrower
This 2nd-century CE marble copy of the famous 450 BCE Greek original by Myron is faithful to the point of imitating the original bronze’s imperfect dimensions.
7. Four-Chariotters Mosaic
The imperial Severi family must have been passionate about sports to have decorated a bedroom of their 3rd-century CE villa with these charioteers. They are dressed in the traditional colors of the four factions of the Roman circus.
8. Bronze Dionysus
Few large Classical bronzes survive today, making this 2nd-century CE statue special beyond its obvious grace, skill, and preserved decoration. You can still see the yellow eyes, red lips, and a comb band in the grape-festooned hair.
9. Ivory Mask of Apollo
This exquisite mask was discovered by illegal excavators in 1995 near Lake Bracciano, northwest of Rome, and intercepted by the Carabinieri. It formed part of a larger chryselephantine statue—one whose face, hands, and feet were made of ivory, placed on a wooden frame and “dressed” with textiles and gold.
10. Boxer at Rest
No idealized athlete, this is a muscled, tough, middle-aged man, resting between bouts, naked except for the leather strips binding his fists. Red copper highlights make his bruises look fresh.
