The Capitoline Museums - part I

On the second floor the Picture gallery houses an important collection of Italian and foreign paintings from the late Middle Age to the 1700's among which "The Good Luck" and "St. John the Baptist" by Caravaggio, the large altar-piece depicting “The Burial of St. Petronilla” by Guercino. Beyond the paintings is here on display a precious collection of furniture and porcelains, donated by the Cini family. The museums are connected by means of a long subterranean gallery, the Lapidaria Gallery, dedicated to ancient epigraphy. The gallery shows through inscriptions various aspect of the public and private life in Ancient Rome. Divided into themes "Languages", "Professions and Crafts" "Sepulchres", "Religions" "Law", "Roads and Aqueducts", "Military", Games, "Roman Aristocracy". The itinerary with an evocative musical accompaniment takes the visitor to the terrace of the Tabularium from where a breathtaking view on the Roman Forum shows to the visitor the ruins of a glorious past and approaches him to the feeling of ancient emperors who, from this same terrace, governed the world and watched on their subjects immersed in their daily activities.

The gallery ends in the New Palace, where in a museological order left untouched since the 700’s, are housed the Ancient sculpture collections, fruit of the passion for collecting of the richest noble families of the past centuries: most famous the collection with the busts of Roman emperors: one after the other we see here the various imperial portraits of those men that the history remembers as constructors or destroyers, bloody or merciful, good or terrible, the same that nowadays watch indifferent in the peaceful calm of the eternity; the room with busts of the poets and philosophers, gives us an idea with rare efficacy of the role of the portrait in the antiquity. The statue of the "Dying Gaul", discovered in the ‘500, is an original Greek piece from the school of Pergamon. The barbarian warrior is here represented in the last moments of his life. He suffers terribly and on his face it is visible the spasm of the suffering agony.The suffering and the pain are represented with such an admirable artistic strength that we almost feel the pulping force of this wonderful body of a warrior overwhelmed and defeated by so much pain. The other magnificent work is the splendid "Capitoline Venus". The naked marble figure, that represents the goddess of love, was discovered in Rome in the ‘ 700’s. In this piece is remarkable the color of the marble of Paros, similar to that of a real body, the realism in the shape of a mature woman and the classic delicacy of the carving, full of fine shadings, so that we almost perceive her breath. Only touching the cold marble this artistic enchantment is solved and we find ourselves watching to one of the most favourite themes in ancient sculpture, the representation of a naked woman. In the courtyard of the Museum dominates the outstanding statue of Marforio surrounded by other monumental sculptures.