Antiquarium Forense

Piazza di Santa Maria Nova 53. (Open Map)
(75)

Description

The Antiquarium Forense was set up at the beginning of the twentieth century by Giacomo Boni in the convent of Santa Maria Nova. Materials coming from the stratigraphic explorations and from the excavations in the Forum and the materials discovered by Bartoli in the wells near theTemple of Vesta, consisting of animal bones and household furnishings (ninth-seventh century BC) are exhibited on the ground floor. The funerary trousseaus found in the tombs, the archaic necropolis, are also exhibited, including a plastic model, photographs, drawings, and the reconstructions of some burials. Children’s tombs carved in tree trunks that can be dated back to the middle of the eighth-seventh century BC, when the adults were no longer buried in the area, are exhibited in one of the halls. Imported Greek ceramics appear here for the first time. Instead fragments of architectures and sculptures, including the frieze of the Basilica Aemilia with the representation of the myth of Aeneas and of the origins of Rome are exhibited in the two halls and the gallery on the first floor. Sculptures coming from Juthurna’s spring and the portraits of emperors are also of great interest. Lastly a small collection of epigraphs is exhibited in the cloister.