Classical Italy October 2018


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Classical Italy Tour

Capitolini Museum

The Musei Capitolini dates from 1471, when Pope Sixtus IV donated to the people of Rome a group of bronze statues that had until then been in the Lateran. Successive popes enlarged the original core collection with works found during the excavations in and around Rome. Some were transferred from the Vatican; others, such as the Albani Collection, were purchased specifically for the museum. Around the middle of the 18th century, Pope Benedict XIV founded the Capitoline Picture Gallery. At the end of the 19th century, soon after the proclamation of Rome as the nations capital in 1870, many ancient pieces dug out in excavations carried out for the creation of the city's new districts were added to the museums collections. These collections are displayed in two of the three buildings that enclose Piazza de Campidoglio - Palazzo dei Conservatori, Palazzo Nuovo and Palazzo Senatorio. Palazzo dei Conservatori and Palazzo Nuovo are linked by an underground tunnel which houses the Epigraphic Gallery and leads to the ancient Tabularium (beneath Palazo Senatorio), whose monumental arches look over the Roman Forum. The Palazzo Neuvo houses the collections of ancient sculptures assembled in the past by Roman nobility. They include a famous collection of busts of ancient philosophers and Roman emperors, the statue of the dying Gaul, the Capitoline Venus and the reclining male statue popularly known as "Marforio", which dominates the courtyard.