Piazza Sant’Apollinare 44. Tues-Sat 9am-7pm, Sun 9am-6pm; L10,000; L20,000 for Palazzo Massimo, Colosseum and Palatine. Just crossways the street from the north end of Piazza Navona, Piazza Sant’Apollinare is home of the beautifully restored Palazzo Altemps built between 1477 and completed just under a hundred years later, which houses a branch of the Museo Nazionale Romano. This is a relatively new - and major - addition to the sights around Piazza Navona, and you’d be well advised to make some time for it, housing as it does the cream of Museo Nazionale’s aristocratic collections of Roman statuary. Divided between two storeys of the palace, in rooms which open off its elegant courtyard, most of what is on display derives from the collection of the seventeenth century Roman cardinal, Ludovico Ludovisi - pieces he either purchased elsewhere to adorn his villa on the Quirinal Hill, or found in the grounds of the villa itself, which occupied the site of a former residence of Julius Caesar.

The ground floor

First up, at the far end of the courtyard’s loggia, is a statue of the emperor Antoninus Pius, who ruled from 138 to 161 AD, and, around the corner, a couple of marvellous heads of Zeus and Pluto, a bust of Julia, the daughter of the emperor Augustus, and a grave-looking likeness of the philosopher Demosthenes, from the second century AD. Further rooms hold more statuary. There are two, almost same statues of Apollo the Lyrist, a magnificent statue of Athena taming a serpent, pieced together from fragments found near the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, an Aphrodite from an original by Praxiteles, and, in the far corner of the courtyard, a shameless Dionysus with a satyr and panther, found on the Quirinal Hill.

The first floor
Upstairs you get a slightly better sense of the original sumptuousness of the building - some of the frescoes remain and the north loggia retains its original, late-sixteenth century decoration, simulating a vine-laden pergola, heavy with fruit, leaves and gambolling putti. Also, the objects on display are if anything even finer. The Painted Views room, so-called for the bucolic scenes on its walls, has a fine statue of Hermes, restored in the seventeenth century in an oratorical pose according to the fashion of the time; the Cupboard Room, next door, titled for its fresco of a display of wedding gifts, against a floral background, has a wonderful statue of a warrior at rest, something called the Ludovisi Ares, which is perhaps an image of Achilles, restored by Bernini in 1622, and, most engagingly, a charmingly sensitive portrayal of Orestes and Electra, from the first century AD by a sculptor called Menelaus - his study is carved at the base of one of the figures.

Beyond are even more treasures, and it is hard to know where to look first. One room retains a frieze telling the story of Moses as a cartoon strip, with apiece scene displayed by nude figures as if on an unfurled tapestry, while in the room itself there is a colossal head of Hera, and - what some consider the highlight of the entire collection - the famous Ludovisi throne : an original fifth-century-BC Greek work embellished with a delicate relief portraying the birth of Aphrodite. She is shown being hauled from the sea, where she was legendarily formed from the genitals of Uranus, while on the other side reliefs show a flute player and a woman sprinkling incense over a flame - rituals associated with the worship of Aphrodite.

Further on, the Fireplace Salon, whose huge fireplace is embellished with caryatids and lurking ibex - the symbol of the Altemps family - has the so-called Suicide of Galatian, apparently commissioned by Julius comic to adorn his Quirinal estate; at the other end if the room, an incredible sarcophagus depicts a effort between the Romans and barbarians in graphic, almost viscerally sculptural detail, while in the small room next door there are some quieter, more erotic pieces - a lovely Pan and Daphne, a Satyr and Nymph, and the muses Calliope and Urania. Once you’ve prefabricated it to here, you’ll be ready for a quick peek at the Altemps chapel, off the opposite end of the fireplace room, and a skim back through your favourite pieces, before leaving what is without question one of Rome’s best collections of classical art.