Sala Meridiana in the museum.
I still vividly remember my first visit to the archaeological museum of Naples. It was back in 1996 and I was still in high school. My class was enjoying the traditional trip to Rome, and excursions to Naples and Pompeii were also part of the programme. In those days the Italians still paid with lires, virtually no one had a cell phone yet and the high-speed train between Rome and Naples was still a thing of the future. For us as seventeen-year-olds this meant that we were expected to wake up at 4:30 and take our seats in a coach at 5:00. In three hours this coach took us to the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, locally known as the MANN. For teenagers their first introduction to the hustle and bustle of Naples can be quite intimidating. This was certainly the case for your author, who was glad he and his classmates were driven into the museum straight from the coach. The museum was a genuine haven of peace. There were very few visitors that day, but the MANN is so big, with over a hundred rooms, that even today no one ever runs the risk of being run over by hordes of people.
I find it somewhat odd that I hardly remember anything about the museum pieces. We could not spend much time in the museum anyway, as we had to catch the train to Pompeii. In a way the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli was just the starter and the city that had been destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 79 CE the main course. Almost thirty years passed before I was back in Naples. The archaeological museum was high on my to-do list. During my visit I took dozens of photos and swore an oath to write a post about the MANN for my website. But how on earth does one do that for a museum that has such a huge collection? I normally just pick ten highlights, but that strategic failed miserably this time. There are evidently far more than ten highlights that warrant discussion. As images speak louder than words, I decided to write a series of posts that are dominated by pictures. In the end I came up with a division of the museum collection into four parts:
- Sculptures;
- Paintings;
- Mosaics;
- Magna Graecia.
In the near future I will write a fifth post that will be entirely dedicated to the famous Alexander Mosaic. That mosaic is currently undergoing restoration and will not be visible to the public for a number of years.
History of the museum
The building in which the MANN has found accommodation was built in the sixteenth century as a barracks for the royal cavalry. In 1616 it was granted to the University of Naples. Then in the eighteenth century the idea was born to open a royal museum in Naples. In 1748, during the reign of Charles VII (1734-1759), the excavations at Pompeii had started. These excavations had brought to light magnificent objects, which were initially taken to the royal palace in Portici, just southeast of Naples. In 1777 Charles’ son and successor King Ferdinand IV (1759-1799) decided to move the university, so that the old cavalry barracks could be remodelled to house the Real Museo Borbonico. The new museum opened its doors in 1816. Originally it was more than just an archaeological museum; the website of the MANN even uses the term “encyclopedic museum”. It also had an impressive collection of books and paintings. The books were moved to the royal palace of Naples in 1925, while in 1957 the paintings were returned to the palace of Capodimonte (now a museum in its own right). We may therefore conclude that the MANN has been in existence since 1957.
Many of the archaeological objects in the museum come from Southern Italy. Very few are actually from Naples, it is the objects from Pompeii and Herculaneum – also destroyed in the volcanic eruption – that take centre-stage. A lot of attention is given to Magna Graecia, the area colonised by Greek migrants. And then there is the special position of the Farnese collection. It consists of objects from Rome and was named after cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who in 1534 was elected Pope Paulus III (1534-1549). In the sixteenth century there were a lot of illegal excavations in Rome. The pope put an end to these practices and in 1541 began his own collection of sculptures from Antiquity, which was enlarged by other members of the family. In 1545 Paulus initiated his own excavations at the Thermae Antoninianae, alternatively known as the Baths of Caracalla. When finished and opened in 216, they were the largest public baths in the city. Some 1,600 people could take a bath simultaneously and as many as 8,000 people from all social classes could use the facilities each day. Of all the public baths constructed in Ancient Rome, only the Baths of Diocletianus, built between 298 and 306, were bigger (see Rome: Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri). These could accommodate up to 3,000 people at the same time.
The Farnese collection
In 1545 Pope Paulus III created the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza for his son Pier Luigi Farnese, the fruit of an affair with a mistress when Paulus was still cardinal Alessandro Farnese. The Dukes of Parma and Piacenza administered the family collection of objects from Antiquity, most of which were kept in Rome and Parma. The situation changed drastically after Antonio Farnese had died in 1731, the last male member of his family. Crown prince Charles of Bourbon then became the new duke, his mother Elisabetta Farnese being the late Antonio’s niece. And so the Farnese collection became the property of the Bourbons. When in 1734 Charles also became King of Naples, his centre of power shifted to Southern Italy. The king also decided to move many of his possessions south. It was his son Ferdinand IV who took the decision to move the objects from Antiquity to Naples as well and give them a central place in his planned Real Museo Borbonico. In the right wing of the ground floor of the MANN we now find the most important objects from the Farnese collection.
The sculptures of the Farnese collection were usually found broken into many pieces. This led to restorations which seem very odd to modern eyes. Parts that obviously did not match were combined anyway. The curious restoration work started in Rome and was continued after the collection was moved to Naples. It resulted in pastiches that have often been ridiculed, but the criticism is not entirely justified, as we are still dealing with sculptural work that is almost two millennia old. A beautiful statue of the emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-180) for instance consists of a contemporary head of this emperor and a body from the age of his colleague Claudius (41-54). The head of his co-emperor Lucius Verus (161-169) was given a body that was made around 50-75.
Judging by modern standards, Roman sculptors were not very original. They often copied famous works of Greek sculptors. The Farnese collection has many examples of this practice. The sculpture group of the Tyrannicides is for instance a Roman copy from the second century after a Greek statue from 477 BCE that was made by the Athenian sculptors Kritios and Nesiotes. The two sculpted men are Harmodios and Aristogeiton, who were responsible for the murder of the Athenian tyrant Hipparchos. The statue of Pan teaching the young Daphnis how to play the pan flute is a Roman copy from the second half of the second century. The original was made by the sculptor Heliodoros of Rhodos, who lived in the second century BCE. Both in the case of the Tyrannicides and that of Pan and Daphnis the original statues have been lost. This makes it a blessing that the Romans so fanatically copied Greek sculptures.
During the excavations at the Baths of Caracalla some forty statues were discovered. Some of these were made specifically for the baths, while others were older and must have stood somewhere else originally. One work from the baths that I really wanted to see was the so-called Farnese Bull. This sculpture group tells the story of Dirce, queen of Thebes, who is punished by the twins Amphion and Zethos. Dirce has treated their mother Antiope like dirt, so her punishment is that she is tied to a wild bull and dragged along by the animal.
A statue of a warrior with a child slung over his shoulder possibly stood in the cold-water bath (frigidarium) of the baths. The most common interpretation is that the statue represents the Greek hero Achilles who has killed the Trojan prince Troilos. According to another interpretation the warrior is Neoptolemos holding Astyanax, the young son of Hektor.
Other interesting statues
Several beautiful statues come from Herculaneum, destroyed by the eruption of the Vesuvius. Statues of the emperor Augustus (27 BCE-14 CE) and his wife Livia were found in the Augusteum of the town, the centre of the cult of the emperors. What makes the statue extra special is that they are made of bronze.
Also from the Augusteum is a marble statue of the emperor Titus (79-81). It was during his reign that the eruption of the Vesuvius took place. The excavations at the Augusteum were carried out in 1739-1741 and 1759-1760. The statue of a man in a toga that was found in the temple of Fortuna possibly represents the orator Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE). It was Cicero who had financed the temple.
Before the volcanic eruption there was a villa in Herculaneum that is now known as the Villa of the Papiri. Here about a dozen interesting busts were discovered, some made of bronze and some of marble. The busts can be admired on the second floor of the MANN. It is not always easy to identify them, and in the distant past several theories have been developed which are rejected nowadays. A bronze bust of a man with a shaved head, found in 1752, was for instance identified as Scipio Africanus, the Roman general who defeated the Carthaginian Hannibal. However, it is now assumed that the man is actually a priest of Isis. These were required to shave their heads for reasons of hygiene. A head that was once thought to represent the philosopher Seneca (4 BCE-65 CE) is now called the pseudo-Seneca. His real identity is simply unknown.
Other busts can be identified more easily. The men are mostly Hellenistic kings from the third and second century BCE, such as Pyrrhus of Epirus, Seleukos I Nikator (founder of the Seleucid Empire), Eumenes II of Pergamum and Demetrios Poliorketes of Macedonia. The owner of the Villa of the Papiri apparently wanted to be surrounded by celebrities from days of old.
There are also objects in the museum that come from other cities in Campania. Remains of a Capitoline Triad – Jupiter, Juno and Minerva – come from Cumae, while a bust of the empress Plotina was found in Baiae. Plotina was the wife of the emperor Trajanus (98-117), and Baiae was a famous seaside resort during the Roman era. Many wealthy Romans had villas built here and spent the holidays in Baiae.
Sources: website MANN Napoli|Museo Archeologico di Napoli, Capitol travel guide for Naples (2018 edition), p. 90-93 and a reader from my high school years!
Pingback:Naples: Museo Archeologico Nazionale (part 2) – – Corvinus –