Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and Palazzo dei Conservatori house the Capitoline Museums, while Palazzo Senatorio is
home to Rome's municipal government.
a copy. The original, which dates from the 2nd century AD, is in the Capitoline Museums.
Capitoline Museums
MUSEUM
(Musei Capitolini; 06 06 08;
www.museicapitolini.org
;
Piazza del Campidoglio 1; adult/reduced €9.50/
7.50; 9am-8pm Tue-Sun, last admission 7pm; Piazza Venezia)
The world's oldest national
museums, the Capitoline Museums occupy two
palazzi
on Piazza del Campidoglio. Their
origins date to 1471, when Pope Sixtus IV donated a number of bronze statues to the city,
forming the nucleus of what is now one of Italy's finest collections of classical art.
the original core of the sculpture collection on the 1st floor and the museum's picture gal-
lery on the 2nd floor. Before you start on the sculpture collection proper, take a moment to
admire the marble body parts littered around the
courtyard
. The mammoth head, hand and
feet all belonged to a 12m-high statue of Constantine that once stood in the Basilica di
Massenzio in the Roman Forum.
Of the sculpture on the 1st floor, the Etruscan
Lupa Capitolina
(Capitoline Wolf) is the
most famous piece. Standing in the Sala della Lupa, this 5th-century-BC bronze wolf
stands over her suckling wards Romulus and Remus, who were added to the composition
in 1471. Other crowd-pleasers include the
Spinario
, a delicate 1st-century-BC bronze of a
boy removing a thorn from his foot in the Sala dei Trionfi, and Gian Lorenzo Bernini's
Medusa
bust in the Sala delle Oche.
Also on the 1st floor, in the modern wing known as the
Esedra di Marco Aurelio
, is the
original of the equestrian statue that stands in the piazza outside, and foundations of the
Temple of Jupiter, the temple that once dominated the Capitoline Hill.
Upstairs, the
Pinacoteca
displays paintings by a long list of major Italian and Flemish
artists, including Titian, Tintoretto, Van Dyck, Rubens and Caravaggio. Each room har-
bours masterpieces but two stand out: the Sala Pietro da Cortona, home to Pietro da Cor-
tona's depiction of the
Ratto delle sabine
(Rape of the Sabine Women), and the Sala di
Santa Petronilla, named after Guercino's huge canvas
Seppellimento di Santa Petronilla
(The Burial of St Petronilla). Here you'll also find two Caravaggio canvases:
La Buona
