Palazzo Massimo

After completing  week two of my course, I headed down the Via Nazionale to visit the national museum, the Palazzo Massimo, late last week.  I was particularly was interested in seeing the frescoes from the Villa of Livia, wife of Augustus – the emperor who ruled after Julius Caesar and famously changed Rome from a city of brick, to one of marble.

Livia Drusilla has always been a shadowy historical figure – devoted third wife of Augustus, mother of the dreadful Tiberius, staunch upholder of the family values instigated on the Roman populace by her husband.  In her house on the Palatine Hill - rarely open - there are still fragments of mosaic floors and frescoes to give a sense of the opulence and beauty of her surroundings.  But to experience the refinement and detail of these frescoes, you can see her Painted Garden, the partly submerged room from her villa on the outskirts of Rome, at the Palazzo Massimo. Archaeologists believe the room was used as an escape from the summer heat, and have found evidence of underground water pipes that probably carried water to a central fountain. With its shadowy greens and blues, abundant flora and fauna (all seasons are in flower here) it no doubt gave a beautiful sense of shady coolness and peace.

In the late 1800’s the room was lifted in its entirety from the Villa of Livia to avoid damaging the frescoes from encroaching damp, and it was an incredible undertaking to reconstruct the room, to the same dimensions, on the top floor of the Palazzo Massimo museum.  You can sit in the centre of the room, and look at these 2,000 year old paintings and just wonder at the skill and ability to render such wonderful perspective by the artists of the day.

See the reconstructed room in this video (with breathy commentary!).

You could happily spend days in the Palazzo museum – and along with the regular exhibitions, currently there is a special exhibition of Monsters. Fantastic Creatures of Fear and Myth from the ancient world – the collections of sculpture, jewellery, mosaics and frescoes are fantastic.  But the other great things to see in this museum are the relics from the ships of Nemi, those pleasure boats sailed by Caligula in the first century A.D. on the shores of this volcanic lake 30km south of Rome.

These boats were enormous – 240 feet in length - and the technology was most advanced for the time.  It’s thought the ships were built solely for recreation, incorporating sculpture, mosaics, hot and cold bathing, and even rotating platforms.  A year after their construction, they were stripped of their valuables and deliberately sunk after the assassination of Caligula.

In 1927, a fantastic undertaking to recover the ships involved draining the volcanic lake into nearby farmlands.  Ordered by Mussolini, a combined effort from the navy, army, industry and private contributions saw the first ship break the surface of the lake in 1929.  By 1931 the second ship was uncovered; unleashing 500,000 cubic metres of mud and causing 74 acres of the lake floor to subside. 

The ships were displayed in a museum on the shores of the lake, and tragically destroyed in the Second World War by fire, purportedly by the retreating German army. Some material, stored in Rome, can be seen today in the Palazzo Massimo.

Of particular beauty is the bronze handrail to the first ship, with alternate busts of gods and goddesses.  And the incredible medusa head in bronze, so finely worked you can see the flowing lines of the hair, and the lines of the face.