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...