Room XV. Antiquarium Romanum, bronzes, statues, vases and other furnishings
Room XV. Antiquarium Romanum, bronzes, statues, vases and other furnishings
L’Antiquarium Romanum was established between 1955 and 1957, with the purpose of giving new and specific order to Roman age artefacts, which had until then been mixed with the Etruscan and Italic material of the Gregorian Etruscan Museum.
The room houses valuable examples of large bronze statuary from the Roman age, including a monumental statue with an honorary portrait, dating from around 40 B.C., and a head-portrait of the emperor Trebonianus Gallus (251-253 A.D.).
The display cabinet holds parts of bronze furniture, including a figurative foot for a folding table and the headboard (fulcrum) of a bed (first century B.C. to first century A.D.), bronze dining vessels (first century B.C. to fifth century A.D.), and the famous silver vases dedicated to Apollo from the thermal springs of Vicarello, near Bracciano (second half of the first century A.D.), aside from measuring instruments (weights and balances) and figured bronzes from the first to the third centuries A.D. Of particular interest are two examples of artefacts attesting to the syncretistic cults of Imperial Rome, a bust of Sabazios and a hand of the cult of Sabazios, both in bronze and dating from the second to third centuries A.D., respectively from Bolsena and from the Santa Colomba area just north of Rome, on the Via Salaria.