Type:

Luoghi della cultura; Ente/Istituzione

Category:

Archaeology museums

The Museum was created thanks to the donation to the Town Council of Rome of the collection of Giovanni Barracco (1829-1914). The aim of the collector was to create a small museum of “ancient comparative sculpture” bringing together Egyptian, Assyrian, Phoenician, Cypriot, Etruscan, Greek, Roman and Mediaeval art, and offering a limited but complete panorama of the artistic expression of the main ancient civilisations of the Mediterranean. The collection, which grew until the collector passed away in 1914, was initially housed in a museum built specifically for that purpose by Barracco and designed by Gaetano Koch in Corso Vittorio Emanuele II at the crossroads with the Lungotevere. Urban works of the 1930s led to the demolition of the building and the collection only found its current definitive location in 1948 in the settings of the 16th century Palazzo della Farnesina ai Baullari. The collection, the result of an accurate choice of the cultured collector, contains some real masterpieces of ancient art; exceptional examples of Egyptian and Assyrian art, a prestigious collection of original Greek works, a small but significant and rare collection of Cypriot art, important and sophisticated Roman copies of original Greek ones, and some examples of mediaeval art.