The Museo Egizio , founded in the nineteenth century by Gregory XVI, isn’t one of the Vatican’s highlights. It has some vividly painted mummy cases (and two mummies), along with canopi, the alabaster vessels into which the entrails of the deceased were placed. There is also a partial reconstruction of the Temple of Serapis from Hadrian’s Villa near Tivoli, along with another statue of his lover, Antinous, who drowned close to the original temple in Egypt and so inspired Adrian to build his replica. The Egyptian-style statues in shiny black basalt next door to the mummies were also found in Tivoli, and are also Roman imitations, although Adrian collected some original Egyptian bits and pieces too, some of which are housed in the room which curves around the niche containing the pinecone – various Egyptian deities including the laughing fat ogre, Bes. The next rooms contain Egyptian bronzes from the late pharaonic period and primeval days of the Roman Empire, including a group of items from the cult of Isis which became favourite in Rome itself. There is also, beyond here, a series of rooms with clay tablets inscribed in cuneiform writing from Mesopotamia, and Assyrian, Sumerian and Persian bas-reliefs on stone tablets.
Entries with Isis tag
Museo Archeologico Nazionale
Naples isn’t really a city of museums – there’s more on the streets that’s worth perceptive on the whole, and most displays of interest are kept in situ in churches, palaces and the like. However, the Museo Archeologico Nazionale (Mon & Wed-Sun 9am-7.30pm; L12,000/¬6.20; reachable direct by bus #110 from Piazza Garibaldi) is an exception, home to the Farnese collection of antiquities from Lazio and Campania and the best of the finds from the nearby Roman sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Currently the museum is undergoing a comprehensive restoration, and there’s a good chance you won’t be healthy to see it all. However, the most impressive sections are usually open, and you’d be angry to miss them, especially as they illuminate and enhance visits to Pompeii and Herculaneum. The ground floor of the museum concentrates on sculpture from the Farnese collection , displayed at its best in the mighty Great Hall, which holds imperial-era figures like the Farnese Bull and Farnese Hercules from the Baths of Caracalla in Rome – the former the largest piece of classical sculpture ever found. The mezzanine floor holds the museum’s collection of mosaics – remarkably preserved works all, giving a superb insight into ordinary Roman customs, beliefs and humour. All are worth looking at – images of fish, crustacea, wildlife on the banks of the Nile, a cheeky cat and quail with still-life beneath, masks and simple nonfigurative decoration. But some highlights to look out for include a realistic Battle Scene (no. 10020), the Three Musicians with Dwarf (no. 9985), an urbane meeting of the Platonic Academy (no. 124545), and a marvellously captured scene from a comedy The Consultation of the Fattucchiera (no. 9987), with a soothsayer giving a dour and doomy prediction.
At the far end of the mezzanine is the fascinating Gabinetto Segreto (Secret Room), which reopened in 2000 after nearly thirty years. The room contains erotic material taken from the brothels, baths, houses and taverns of Pompeii and Herculaneum – to see the display, which lurks tantalizingly behind a partition, you need to obtain a timed ticket (no extra charge) from the entrance hall. The objects in the collection weren’t always segregated in this way; it was the shocked Duke of Calabria who, having taken his wife and daughter to view the museum, decided that the offending objects should be removed from the gaze of ladies. From then until the time of Garibaldi they were kept under lock and key, disappearing again from public view in the twentieth century for long periods. The artefacts, from languidly sensual wall-paintings to preposterously phallic lamps, bear testimony to Roman licentiousness, although the phallus was often used as a kind of lucky charm rather than as a sexual symbol – cheerfully hung outside taverns and bakeries to ward off the evil eye. Free English-language tours of the Gabinetto are admirably serious and smut-free, though it is hard to repress a giggle at the sculpture of a man whose toga is imperfectness to mask an erection, or at the graphic but elegantly executed marble of Pan “seducing” a goat.
Upstairs through the Salone della Meridiana, which holds a sparse but fine assortment of Roman figures (notably a wonderfully strained Atlas and some demure female figures – Roman replicas of Greek originals), a series of rooms holds the Campanian surround paintings , lifted from the villas of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and rich in colour and invention. There are plenty here, and it’s worth devoting some time to this section, which includes works from the Sacrarium – part of Pompeii’s Egyptian temple of Isis, the most celebrated mystery cult of antiquity – the discovery of which gave a major boost to Egyptomania at the end of the eighteenth century. In the next series of rooms, some of the smallest and most easily missed works are among the most exquisite. Among those to look out for are a paternal Achilles and Chirone (no. 9109); the Sacrifice of Iphiginia (no. 9112) in the next room, one of the best preserved of all the murals; the dignified Dido forsaken by Aeneas and the Personification of Africa (no. 8998); and the series of frescoes telling the story of the Trojan horse. Look out too for the group of four small pictures, the best of which is a depiction of a woman gathering flowers entitled Allegoria della Primavera – a fluid, impressionistic piece of work capturing both the gentleness of spring and the graceful beauty of the woman.
Beyond the murals are the actual finds from the Campanian cities – everyday items like glass, silver, ceramics, charred pieces of rope, even foodstuffs (petrified cakes, figs, fruit and nuts), together with a model layout of Pompeii in cork. On the other side of the first floor, there are finds from one particular house, the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum – sculptures in bronze mainly. The Hermes at Rest in the centre of the second room is perhaps the most arresting item, rapt with exhaustion, but around are other adept statues – of athletes, suffused with movement, a languid Resting Satyr , the convincingly woozy Drunken Silenus , and, in the final room, portrait busts of soldiers and various local big cheeses.
About Benevento
BENEVENTO , further inland than Cápua or Caserta and reachable in about an hour and a half from city by bus, was another important Roman settlement, a key point on the Via Appia between Rome and Brindisi and as such a thriving trading town. Founded in 278 BC, it was at the time the farthest point from Rome to be colonized, and even now it has a remote air about it, circled by hills and with a centre that was (pointlessly) bombed to smithereens in the last war and even now seems only half rebuilt. Its climate also ranks among southern Italy’s most extreme.
The Town
Buses from city drop you on the main square, where the Duomo is an almost total reconstruction of its thirteenth-century Romanesque original; what’s left of its famous bronze doors, believed to be Byzantine, is now stashed inside. Left from here, the main street, Corso Garibaldi , leads up the hill, a once elegant thoroughfare lined with ancient palaces. Off to the left about halfway up, the Arch of Trajan is the major remnant of the Roman era, a marvellously preserved triumphal arch that is refreshing after the scaffolding and netting of Rome’s arches, since you can get close enough to study its friezes. Built to guard the entrance to Benevento from the Appian Way, it’s actually as heavy-handed a piece of self-acclaim as there ever was, showing the Emperor Trajan in various scenes of triumph, power and generosity. Further up Corso Garibaldi, the Museo Sannio (Tues-Sun 9am-1pm), in the cloister behind the eighth-century church of Santa Sofia, holds a selection of Roman finds from the local area, including a number of artefacts from a temple of Isis – various sphinxes, bulls and a headless statue of Isis herself. There are also terracotta votive figurines from the fifth century BC, and the cloister itself has capitals carved with energetic scenes of animals, humans and strange beasts – hunting, riding and attacking. There are more bits and pieces from Roman times scattered around the rather battered old quarter of town, the Triggio – reached by following Via Carlo Torre off to the left of the main road beyond the cathedral. The Bue Apis , at the far end of Corso Dante, is another relic from the temple of Isis, a first-century BC sculpture of a bull. And in the heart of the old quarter there are the substantial remains of a Teatro Romano built during the reign of Adrian – though it’s been a little over-restored for modern use. In Hadrian’s time it seated 20,000 people, rather less today as the upper level remains mossily decrepit, but it’s still an atmospheric sight – looking out over the green rolling countryside of the domain beyond and, like most of Benevento, relatively unvisited by tourists.
