Scope
Roman sculpture, wall painting, mosaics, epigraphy and numismatics, largely from Rome and Latium.
History of the collection
Established in 1889, in the period when the construction of the new national capital was turning up antiquities at a rate no existing institution could absorb.
The Crypta Balbi site, opened later, presents the excavation of a single city block from antiquity through the medieval period, and is unusual among classical museums in treating the post-antique phases as evidence rather than as overburden.
Collection notes
The garden frescoes from the Villa of Livia at Prima Porta are among the best-preserved Roman wall paintings anywhere, removed to the museum for conservation.
The Aristotle herm in the Palazzo Altemps collection is one of the portrait types through which the philosopher has been visualised since the Renaissance.
Objects in this catalogue
Portrait of Aristotle
Record incompleteMarble portrait · Roman imperial period