Archaeology Rome

Designed by Pius VII Chiaramonti (1800-1823) to house Roman statues and busts, this museum was designed by the neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova in 1807: there are about a thousand sculptures, including portraits of emperors, mock divinities, as well as numerous fragments, friezes and bas-reliefs of sarcophagi. It is worth mentioning the miller's funeral monument, from Ostia, dating from the 1st century AD. It is located in the gallery that links the Vatican museums to the courtyard and the Belvedere Palace.

This wing was built under Pius VII and inaugurated in 1817. It houses Roman statues and mosaics, some of which are copies of Greek statues. In the alcove we will seethestatue of the Nile. The river is depicted as a mature and bearded man, surrounded by crocodiles and sixteen naked children who symbolize the bends that the Nile must reach to flood agricultural land. This statue was found in Rome in 1513. Opposite, two gilded bronze peacocks come from Hadrian's villa in Tivoli. Their copy surrounds the Pigne, in the courtyard.

The Candelabra Gallery was refurbished under Pius VI. Its 80 m length is divided into 6 arcades where antiquities from the classical Roman period to the 2nd century are displayed. Under the pilasters rise marble candelabra. We will also look at the ceilings and glasses of the six bays designed by Domenico Torti and Ludwig Seitz under Leo XIII. Notice among all the statues, the curious one of the Artemis Ephesus: covered with what looks like breasts (and which in reality are bull's testicles), it symbolizes fertility.