Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Naples Archaeological Museum: Farnese Collection

The next day we went into Naples again, to see the National Archaeological Museum there, where the major finds from Pompei and Herculaneum now reside. But we detoured first to its Farnese Collection--the first of several we'll see--which features sculpture and other things from ancient Rome. The Farnese were a powerful Roman family of the Renaissance, aristocratic, papal, etc. They were in power when Caraculla's Baths were being plundered and quarried for stone to build St. Peter's, and the Collection here includes some of the colossal scultpures found, saved, and restored. Give them credit for that.... Anyhow, the Farnese Collections came to the Kings of Naples via royal marriage a couple centuries later.
The National Archaeological Museum, at Naples
















Into the collection, colossal in every way
















Vicki stands for scale





















Artemis, from Ephesus--we have seen her
before





















The Farnese Toros--it's a long mythological story, but 
this is the largest sculpture from one piece of marble 
known; pieced back together by no less than 
Michaelangelo and others (another long story)
























Hercules at Rest; sort of a Farnese emblem, the tallest marble 
sculpture...




















First century copy of a 50 BC bust of Julius
Caesar




















Two-fer department--busts of Herodotus and Thucydides















Socrates, Roman copy of a nearly contemporary Greek 
original




















Great Hall of the Palace




















The Farnese Cup--cameo on one piece of stone...



















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