Palazzo Altemps

The Museo Nazionale Romano (National Roman Museum) is a museum with several branches in separate buildings throughout the city of Rome, Italy. It shows exhibits from the pre- and early history of Rome, with a focus on archaeological findings from the period of Ancient Rome.

Founded in 1889 and inaugurated in 1890, the museum's first aim was to collect and exhibit archaeologic materials unearthed during the excavations after the union of Rome with the Kingdom of Italy.

The initial core of its collection originated from the Kircherian Museum, an archaeological collection assembled by the antiquarian and Jesuit priest Athanasius Kircher, which had previously been housed within the Jesuit complex of Sant'Ignazio. The collection was appropriated by the state in 1874, after the suppression of the Society of Jesus. Renamed initially as the Royal Museum, the collection was intended to be moved to a Museo Tiberino (Tiberine Museum), which was never completed.

In 1901 the Italian state granted the National Roman Museum the recently acquired Ludovisi collection, as well as the important national collection of ancient sculpture. Findings during the urban renewal of the late 19th century added to the collections.

In 1913, a ministerial decree sanctioned the division of the collection of the Museo Kircheriano among all the different museums that had been established over the last decades, such as the Museo Nazionale Romano, the Museo Nazionale Etrusco at the Villa Giulia, and the Museum of Castel Sant'Angelo.

Its seat was established in the charterhouse designed and realised in the 16th century by Michelangelo within the Baths of Diocletian, which currently houses the epigraphic and the protohistoric sections of the modern museum, while the main collection of ancient art was moved to the nearby Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, acquired by the Italian state in 1981.

The reconversion of the area of the ancient bath/charterhouse into an exhibition space began on the occasion of the International Exhibition of Art of 1911; this effort was completed in the 1930s.

The palace was built on the site once occupied by the Villa Montalto-Peretti, named after Pope Sixtus V. The present building was commissioned by Prince Massimiliano Massimo, so as to give a seat to the Jesuit Roman College, originally within the convent of the Church of St. Ignatius of Loyola at Campus Martius.

Text adapted from “Museo Nazionale Romano” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Palazzo Altemps ranks #1,047 of 7,738 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #80 of the 452 mapped in Italy. Founded c. 1450, it is older than 48% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 434 atlas entries founded in the 15th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 5,489 times in the last 60 days, more than 86% of the atlas. Wikidata records about 50,000 visitors in 2022. 63 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Rome, 7 km away. See how Italy compares in the castle statistics.

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