The museum system
The Museum System of the Municipality of Rome is made up of an extremely diverse group of museum spaces and archaeological sites, of huge artistic and historical value. As well as the Capitoline Museums, the oldest public museum in the world, the museums that make up the System include the Museum of Rome, which gathers together the most important examples of the art history of Rome from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the nineteenth century, MACRO, a museum for those interested in contemporary art, the museum of the Villa Torlonia, a perfect meeting point of nature and culture, and the Planetarium and the Astronomical Museum, an ideal destination for anyone wanting to encounter the new frontiers of science. In 2006 it has been enriched by the acquisition of several prestigious new spaces, including the Museum of the Altar of Peace, designed by Richard Meier, and the Carlo Bilotti Museum in the Villa Borghese's Orangery, which contains a collection of works by De Chirico.
The wide scope of what is on offer and the numerous initiatives (events and temporary exhibitions) this System of museums hosts, makes it unique in Italy.
The museum group
The foundation of the most ancient publicly owned museums in the world dates back to 1471, when Pope Sixtus IV donated a group of bronze statues, previously housed in the Lateran, to the people of Rome. There are two buildings - the Palazzo dei Conservatori and Palazzo Nuovo –which, along with the Palazzo Senatorio, mark the limits of Piazza del Campidoglio.
This extraordinary example of industrial archaeology converted into a museum - the first public electricity plant, named after Giovanni Montemartini – is the newest addition to the Capitoline Museums exhibition space.
The Museum of the Imperial For a, located inside Trajan’s Markets is the first museum dedicated to ancient architecture, displays reconstructed sections of the Forums’ architectural and sculptural decorations, that have been achieved by reassembling original fragments to which newly made mouldings and stone forms have been added in line with the modern museological concept that any intervention must be reversible.
This museum is the first architectural space to be created in the historical centre of Rome since the end of the Fascist era. Inside, the altar celebrating the Augustan Peace has been reopened to the public following a long period in which access was not possible due to the on-going work.
The prestigious collection of antique sculptures donated by Giovanni Barracco to the City of Rome in 1904 is held to be one of the most beautiful collections in all Rome's museums, and now, thanks to the completion of recent work and the re-opening of the museum, this collection can be admired by the public at large.
The 59 sections of the Museum document all aspects of ancient Roman civilisation: an impressive collection of reproductions of original works, now damaged or lost, of art housed in museums all over the world, as well as models of monuments scattered throughout the Roman Empire.
The Museum is located within the San Sebastiano Gates, one of the largest and best conserved gates in the Aurelian Walls. The exhibits tell the history of the city’s fortifications, from the walls constructed during the royal and republican ages to the Aurelian Walls (3rd century BC).
This archaeological area, which extends along the second and third miles of the via Appia, comprises three main buildings: the palace, the circus and the dynastic mausoleum and was designed as an indissoluble architectonic whole to honour the Emperor Maxentius, Constantine’s ill-fated adversary in the battle of Ponte Milvio in 312 AD.
The Palazzo Braschi, built in the 18th century in the heart of Renaissance and Baroque Rome, is now the seat of the Museum of Rome. It is home to the most significant collection of exhibits to document the social history and artistic life in Rome between the Middle Ages and the early 20th century.
The vast number of exhibits here takes visitors on a journey through the Napoleonic age and the opportunity to get to know various members of the Bonaparte family and their role in history, in a setting, the Palazzo Primoli, where the characteristic atmosphere of a historic aristocratic home remains intact.
MACRO - Rome’s Museum of Contemporary Art - is a museum complex that encompasses two sites: the old Peroni (beer) factory, and the two buildings that once comprised the old slaughterhouse in Testaccio.
After decades of decay, the Orangerie has recently reopened to the public, carefully restored as a cultural centre. It is now a Museum displaying the collection donated by Carlo Bilotti, a passionate art collector of international renown.
In 1927, the City ceded Pietro Canonica, a sculptor of international renown, the use of a building located in the heart of Villa Borghese to use as a place to live and work in. Today, this building houses a Museum dedicated to him and his work.
The most significant aspects of popular Roman life during the end of the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries are to be found here, filtered through the tastes and beliefs of the artists and folklorists who represented it.
Two historical buildings with the walls of Villa Torlonia have been transformed into museum sites: the Casino Nobile, built in the 19th century, now houses the museum that documents the Villa itself as well as a collection of works by the Roman School, and the Museum of the Casina delle Civette, dedicated to artistic stained glass. The Casino dei Principi houses the Roman School Archive, and is used for temporary exhibitions.
The Planetarium is an amazing “space and time machine”: thanks to digital projectors, it is possible to embark on three-dimensional virtual journeys through outer space. The concept behind the Museum is that of a real Astronomical Theatre, full of images, models, and reconstructions of the different planets.
Established in 1932, the Municipal Zoological Museum is the custodian of some five million preserved items that range from small mollusc shells that measure just a few millimetres, to a 16 meter-long blue whale.