The Giovanni Barracco Museum of Ancient Sculpture is part of the Museums system in the Municipality of Rome and is located in the Parione district, near Campo de ‘Fiori. It collects several works of classical and Near Eastern art, donated to the Municipality by Baron Giovanni Barracco in 1904.

Giovanni Barracco Museum of Ancient Sculpture is a museum in Rome, Italy, featuring a collection of works acquired by the collector Giovanni Barracco, who donated his collection to the City of Rome in 1902.

Among the works are Egyptian, Assyrian, and Phoenician art, as well as Greek sculptures of the classical period. The 400 works of the collection are divided according to the civilization and are displayed in nine rooms, on the first and second floors, while the ground floor contains a small reception area.

On the first floor Egyptian works are presented in Rooms I and II. Room II includes works from Mesopotamia, including cuneiform tablets of the third millennium BCE and items from neo-Assyrian palaces dating from the ninth and seventh centuries BCE. The third room contains two important Phoenician items together with some Etruscan art, while the fourth displays works from Cyprus.

The second floor exhibits classical art. Room V presents original sculptures and copies from the Roman period as well as Greek sculpture of the fifth century BCE. Room VI displays copies of classical and late classical Roman work, along with funerary sculptures from Greece. Rooms VII and VIII, show a collection of Greek and Italic ceramics, and other items, starting from the time of Alexander the Great. The final room shows examples of works from public monuments of the Roman period, together with specimens of medieval art.

Giovanni Barracco
Giovanni Barracco was born on April 28, 1829 in Isola Capo Rizzuto, in the Ionian Calabria, eighth of twelve children of a noble family of ancient origin. The fortune of the Barracco family, whose history is closely connected to the Calabrian land, can be established in 1868 when family documents attest that their property had reached 30,000 hectares, covering a territory that ranged from Crotone, site of the eighteenth-century Palazzo Barracco, to the middle of the Sila Grande.

The family was considered to be the richest of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and his father was introduced to the Bourbon’s court, where he held honorary positions. When his father died in 1849, Giovanni moved to Naples with his older brother who had established his residence in a sumptuous palace on via Monte di Dio. Now fully integrated in the Neapolitan aristocratic milieu, the family chose to champion, after the 1848 riots, the liberal ideals that animated the political landscape of the time. These were the years of the repression and the family decided the distance from the House of Bourbons: while the first-born Alfonso refused the title of Knight of the Order of St. Gennaro, Giovanni also refused the proposal of the young King Francis II for an honorary position at court and persuaded the family to finance with 10,000 ducats Garibaldi’s march through Calabria

By then, Giovanni had started to frequent a circle of intellectuals who gathered around Leopold of Bourbon, brother of the King but inspired by liberal ideals. In this milieu of by artists and writers, he met Giuseppe Fiorelli, the great archaeologist who became director of the excavations of Pompeii and the Archaeological Museum of Naples. Their friendship, which lasted throughout his life, introduced him to archaeology and ancient art. Barracco’s political commitment and his liberal ideas led him to take part to the organization of the Plebiscite and hold the position of alderman in Naples in 1860, while in 1861 he was elected to the first parliament of united Italy for the College of Crotone for the historical right. For this reason, he moved to Turin, then capital of the Kingdom, where he rediscovered his old passion for climbing and in 1863 with Quintino Sella climbed the Monviso and the Italian Alpine Club was born. Barracco was appointed to the commission that, at the suggestion of Cavour, conferred the title of king of Italy to Vittorio Emanuele II.

After a brief stay in Florence, when the capital of Italy was moved, Giovanni Barracco arrived in Rome and chose the city as his homeland. He was re-elected to the Chamber of Deputies for three legislatures, holding the office of quaestor and later of vice president of the Chamber. In 1869 Giovanni Lanza offered him the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but he rejected it in favour of Emilio Visconti Venosta. In Parliament he became a member of the Budget Committee and speaker at the Foreign Committee, fought for the construction of the port of Crotone and, since 1875, was a member of the Commission that aimed at “preserving the city of Rome by the floods of the Tiber”.

In 1886, upon the advice of Agostino Depretis, Barracco was appointed Senator of the Kingdom, also at the Senate he held the office of quaestor, dedicating part of his work to the restoration and beautification of Palazzo Madama, a commitment that he remembered in a book published in 1904. In these years he also took measures to preserve the artistic heritage: in 1888 he pleaded for the creation of the Archaeological Promenade and the adoption of the Law Coppino “for the preservation of monuments and objects of art and antiquities.” But he didn’t forget his Calabria: one of his memorable speech of 1906 dealt with the “measures in favour of Calabria after the earthquake of 1905.”

At the end of his life, in 1911, gave one of his last major speech to the Senate: “for the full and entire sovereignty of the Kingdom of Italy in Tripoli and Cyrenaica”, inspired by his patriotism, and recalling the ancient and more recent Italian traditions for the African civilization. In the same year he took part to the inauguration of the Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II and the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Kingdom of Italy: warmly welcomed by the entire Senate as the last living member of the commission that appointed Victor Emmanuel II as King of Italy.

Barracco the collector
Born in the ancient land of Calabria, which still witnesses rich evidences of the ancient world such as the beautiful ruins of the Hera Lacinia sanctuary at Capo Colonna, and educated in classics by Father Constantine Lopez in his early youth, these two factors deeply shaped Barracco’s cultural interests throughout his long life. Many friends in his later years remember him reading Greek and Latin classics in their original language. In the years spent in Naples and through the friendship with Giuseppe Fiorelli – soon-to-be director of the excavations of Pompeii and the Naples Archaeological Museum – Barracco developed his interest in archaeology, instilling in him a passion for art and, in particular, for ancient sculptures.

His political commitment led him to stand in the first parliament of united Italy, and for this reason he moved to Turin in 1861. Here, in the city of the Royal Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, he was fascinated by Egyptology and Near Eastern art and began collecting works purchased from international antique markets, very lively at that time. Indeed, Egyptian art was a passion of his throughout life: he read hieroglyphics and his writings on ancient art are all dedicated to the analysis and interpretation of monuments and works of art from ancient Egypt and the Near East.

With the proclamation of Rome as the capital city of the newborn Italian state, Barracco moved to Rome, settling in an apartment on via del Corso, which soon became a sort of house-museum. Indeed, it was for the city a period of great archaeological activity, with important discoveries that emerged during the construction of new residential districts and offices of the ministries: most of these findings enriched ancient art museums, but also private collections. With W. Helbig and L. Pollak’s advice, his collection of antiquities grew and included works of Egyptian, Assyrian, Etruscan, Cypriot, Greek, Roman and medieval art: the collector’s intent was clearly stated intent in the 1893 catalogue: “to set up a small museum of comparative antique sculpture” by analyzing the contributions to classical art of the great ancient civilizations around the Mediterranean.

In 1902 Barracco donated his collection to the City of Rome: in return he was granted planning permission on Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, where he built a neoclassical building designed by Gaetano Koch to house his collection, known as the Museum of Ancient Sculpture. Barracco died in 1914, leaving the management of the Museum to Ludwig Pollak, his friend and collecting advisor.

Because of the restructuring of the area in the 1930s, Koch’s museum was demolished and only after more than ten years, Barracco’s collection found its final home in the “Farnesina ai Baullari”.

The Barracco Collection
In the first catalogue of the collection, published in 1893, Barracco sets out the principles that govern his collection: “I thought that to learn more about Greek art one should get acquainted with the oldest art styles (Egypt and Asia) who gave the first impulse to Greek art. So I broadened my collection with a few instructive specimens of Egyptian, Assyrian and Cypriot sculpture. Taking advantage of favourable circumstances I have set up a small museum of comparative antique sculpture.

So, apart from minor shortcomings, which I hope to overcome, the most important styles are conveniently represented: Egyptian art in all its stages, from the age of the pyramids to the loss of independence, Assyrian art in its two periods: that of Assur-nazir-Habal and that of Sargonidesm, and finally the art of Cyprus, which is not less important than the others. Greece is represented from the archaic period, the great schools of the V and IV centuries, to the Hellenistic period. Etruria is equally represented. A small place is reserved to Palmyrene sculpture, one of the last expressions of classical art.”

For his ambitious project, Barracco recruited two experts in ancient art of the time: Wolfgang Helbig, second secretary of the German Archaeological Institute, then retired to private life in the beautiful Villa Lante on the Janiculum Hill, where he took active part to the city’s ‘arts and antiques’ environment; and Ludwig Pollak, who had moved to Rome after having studied archaeology in Vienna, and where he became a major player in the cultural life of the city, especially in the antiquities trade. Pollak, whose interests ranged from classical to modern art, soon became a close friend and fine art advisor.

The collection, carefully arranged to set up “a museum of comparative antique sculpture” includes works of Egyptian, Assyrian, Phoenician, Cypriot, Etruscan, Greek, Roman and medieval art. As for Egyptian art, to which Barracco dedicated more of himself than to any other, the collection includes remarkable fragments of funerary sculpture, especially of the early dynasties.

Alongside these works, purchased on the international market, important items emerged during excavations of the nineteenth and early twentieth century in various Italian places enrich the collection: they give a detailed account of the Egyptian penetration in Italian culture since Roman times.

Noteworthy is the sphinx of Hatscepsut, a queen of the XVIII Dynasty (1479-1425 BC), found in the sanctuary of Isis in the Campus Martius, but also the head of Pharaoh Seti I (XIX Dynasty, 1289-1278 BC) reused as building material for the Savelli castle in Grottaferrata. Assyrian art is represented by an important series of reliefs depicting scenes of war, the deportation of prisoners and hunting scenes, from the royal palaces of Nineveh, Nimrud and Khorsabad in northern Mesopotamia. The findings, which date from the IX to the VII centuries BC, relate to the major kings of the neo-Assyrian Empire.

Particularly significant is the fragment that reproduces the figure of a winged genius kneeling, a typical element of the mythic-symbolic language of Assyrian art, dating back to the reign of Ashurbanipal II (883-859 BC) and coming from Nimrud. A particularly interesting section of the museum displays Cypriot artworks, revealing cross-cultural connections between the ancient Near East and the Greek world.

Figures of deities, such as the Statue of Heracles-Melqat (V century BC, ), images of offerers and even a small toy chariot found in a tomb, offer a unique chance to see Cypriot artworks in Rome. Besides some important Etruscan finds, Greek sculptures are the most represented in the Museum. Starting with important examples of archaic art made in Greece and in the western colonies, remarkable specimens of the major schools of classical Greek art: with copies of the highest level after Myron, Phidias, Polykleitos, Lysippus illustrate some of the most celebrated masterpieces of Greek sculpture of the V and IV centuries BC.

A special place is reserved to original Greek artworks, plenty for a relatively small collection. Through a series of Hellenistic artworks, visitors are guided through most expressive forms of Roman art: there are some portraits, the fragment of an important historical relief, a large head of Mars from a public monument, and some tombstones from Palmyra, Syria. Two tiles from the Sorrento cathedral (X-XI century) and a Medieval fragment of apse mosaic of St. Peter’s Basilica (XII-XIII century) are at the end of the exhibition path: “My collection ends here, several thousand years since its beginning, which dates back to the earliest dynasties of Egyptian kings”.

In 1902, in a gesture of great generosity, Barracco decided to donate to the City of Rome the entire collection of sculptures, which included nearly two hundred artworks: in return he was granted the use of a building land on Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, where the road meets the Tiber. On this land Barracco built a small neoclassical building designed by Gaetano Koch, with a facade like an Ionic temple according to the fashion of the time, whose pediment bore the inscription MVSEO DI SCVLTVRA ANTICA. In the new Museum, which opened in 1905, the sculptures were arranged in two long exhibition halls, with large windows cut into the top of the walls to ensure proper lighting of the artworks similar to that the Baron had studied for his apartment on via del Corso; many sculptures were placed on elegant black wood swivel bases, especially designed to display artworks. Finally, it was the first museum in Italy to be equipped with a heating system to make the visit more pleasant.

The 1931 town planning and the amendments to the city’s urban area required the demolition of the building built by Koch only a few decades earlier: despite impassioned attempts by Pollak the Museum was demolished in 1938, artworks in the collection were moved to the Capitoline Museums warehouse until when, in 1948, the collection was finally moved to the present seat in the so-called “Farnesina ai Baullari”.

The Museum

First Ancient Sculpture Museum
Having no direct heirs (he never married and had no children), Giovanni Barracco made the decision to donate his collection to the city of Rome. For this he was awarded the honorary citizenship of Rome. An area was also made available to him to make it an adequate museum, in Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, in front of the church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini. The museum, called Museum of Ancient Sculpture, was designed by Gaetano Koch, with whom Barracco had already collaborated when, as Quaestor of the Senate of the Kingdom, he had presided over the restructuring and adaptation of Palazzo Madama.

Giovanni Barracco personally followed the design phase and the construction of the Museum of Ancient Sculpture, which presented itself as a classical temple. At Barracco’s request, the Museum was equipped with a heating system (the first in Italy ), large windows for correct lighting of the exhibited works, and revolving bases to allow the all-round view of some sculptures. At the Museum it was also linked to the personal library of Barraco.

In the last years of his life, Giovanni Barracco moved his home in Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, to the Museum, and continued to enrich the collection. In the will, he left indications to his heirs to purchase some publications for the museum library, of which Ludwig Pollak would remain Conservator until his deportation by the Gestapo in 1943.

The Museum of Ancient Sculpture was demolished in 1938 on the occasion of the restoration works of Corso Vittorio Emanuele II following the construction of the Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II. The collection was transferred to the Osteria dell’Orso and subsequently to the warehouses of the Capitoline Museums. In 1948 the Museum was rearranged in the Palazzo della Farnesina at the Baullari in Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, made specifically available by the Municipality of Rome.

Piccola Farnesina ai Baullari
The building, whose facade is attributed to Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, was built in 1523 by a Breton prelate Thomas Le Roy (latinized in Tomas Regis ), who for having worked well on the stipulation of the concordat between Pope Leo X and Francis I all the day after the battle of Marignano, he was authorized by the latter to enrich his emblem with the lily of France (brought to Rome by the Farnese family ) – which in fact occurs throughout the decoration of the building, and from which it most likely derives from the building the name of “Piccola Farnesina”.

After various hereditary and judicial events, the property passed to the Silvestri in 1671, whose emblem with the scorpion appears on the first floor, and was finally expropriated in 1885 by the Municipality of Rome, which was tracing the new road axis of Corso Vittorio to connect Piazza Venezia in San Pietro. The building was saved from the demolitions that affected the surrounding buildings, freed from elevations that had been added, restored and integrated with a new facade on Corso Vittorio built in the same style and the current short entrance steps. These works were made “public area” and completed in 1901, as evidenced by the inscription affixed to the string course along Corso Vittorio.

In 1899, during excavations aimed at consolidating its foundations on the occasion of these works, structures pertinent to a 4th century Roman house were discovered which, contrary to what happened to other similar finds that came to light during the demolitions in the area, were saved, but cannot currently be visited. It is recognized, about four meters below the current road level, the white marble pavement of a courtyard, the base of a circular fountain whose basin has been left in situ, two sides of a peristyle with columns of reuse of the first century, frescoes of aquatic and hunting subjects, traces of opus sectile floorsin some of the rooms overlooking the peristyle. The purpose of the building is unclear and has probably changed over time.

The Buliding
The elegant 16th-century palace that houses the Barracco collection was built between 1520 and 1523 for the Breton prelate Thomas le Roy, who had come to Rome in 1494 in the retinue of king Charles VIII of France. Le Roy was active in the Roman Curia during the reigns of popes Alexander VI, Julius II, Leo X and Clement VII.

The owner’s name and the date of construction are confirmed in two incriptions found during renovation work in 1900 and displayed in the courtyard: “Toma Regis Brito de Meczaco / Redonen(sis) Dioc(esis) Camere Ap.lice / clericus abbre(tor) de maiori et / scriptor ap.lic me fieri fecit / MDXXIII” (“Thomas Regis, Breton from Meczac, in the diocese of Redon, senior cleric of the Chancery of Apostolic Briefs and apostolic writer, had me built in 1523”). The symbols of the lilies of France and the ermines of Brittany carved on the stringcourses of the palace go back to the Frenchman who built it. Since the lilies were also the emblem of the Farnese family, the building was improperly known as the Farnesina ai Baullari, the Little Farnese Palace on the Trunk-Makers’ Street.

Some scholars attribute the architectural design to Antonio da Sangallo, based on 16th-century drawings that show the floor plan and the façades. More recent research attributes it to Jean de Chenevières, architect of the nearby church of San Luigi dei Francesi. In the 17th century, the palace belonged to the Silvestri family, which added decorative frescos with its own emblems (black scorpion on a gold ground) and the bees of the Barberini family, with which the Silvestris had kinship ties.

In 1886-90, when the area was being transformed by the construction of a new east-west artery, Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, the building underwent major changes, planned by Enrico Guj. As the buildings adjacent to the palace had been torn down to make way for the new avenue, the whole side of the palace facing Corso Vittorio had to be rebuilt. On this occasion, important archeological remains were discovered beneath the building: those of a Roman house of the 3rd-4th century A.D., arranged around a colonnaded courtyard. A series of frescoes painted in late antiquity was also discovered in the house, with scenes of hunting and fishing; these were eventually detached and displayed in a room on the ground floor.

The “Farnesina ai Baullari” has housed the Barracco collection since 1948.

Exhibition Halls
The 400 works from the Barracco collection, divided according to civilization, are distributed in nine exhibition halls.

The Egyptian works, ranging from the testimonies of the earliest dynasties to the Ptolemaic age, can be found in Room I and II. The second room hosts the works from Mesopotamia, from the foundation nails and the cuneiform tablets of the third millennium before Christ, up to the findings coming from the neo-Assyrian palaces dating from the ninth and seventh centuries BC. The III Room preserves two important items of Phoenician art, with few but significant specimens of Etruscan art. The fourth Room displays works from Cyprus, an important crossroads of civilizations in the middle of the eastern Mediterranean.

The second floor is dedicated to classical art: Room V presents an impressive gallery of illustrated works, with original sculptures and precious copies of the Roman period, the major schools of Greek sculpture of the fifth century BC. Room VI displays valuable Roman copies of classic and late classic artworks, along with some fine funerary sculptures from Greece. Rooms VII and VIII, besides an important collection of Greek and Italic ceramics, presents other Greek artworks ranging from the period of Alexander the Great to the latest manifestations of Hellenistic art and copies of Roman times. The last room is the IX, which displays some examples of decorative art and works from public monuments of the Roman period, and a few specimens of medieval art.

Room 1
Egyptian Art
The first two rooms are dedicated to Egyptian art, with different materials from some Parisian auctions and several excavations carried out directly in Egypt; it is the first part collected by Baron Barracco. The stele of Nofer is a limestone fragment attributed to the homonymous scribe of the IV dynasty, portrayed in front of an altar for offerings. Originally from the necropolis of Giza, Ismail Enver donated it to Girolamo Bonaparte; in ParisBaron Barracco purchased the piece for his collection. Nearby there is a small statue made of wood and most likely dating from the XII dynasty, on whose hands some hieroglyphics were made. A rarity is the female sphinx attributed to Queen Hatshepsut (XVIII dynasty) in black granite, whose inscription mentions the brother Thutmose II of which the queen was regent. The work was found in the Iseo Campense Roman site of the first century, near Campo Marzio.

A little further on there is a youthful portrait of Ramses II, representation of the homonymous pharaoh of the New Kingdom, always made of black granite, and with the double crown and a helmet, accompanied by the sacred uraeus. Produced instead with diorite is the figure of a bearded priest, whom Barracco believed represented the Roman emperor Julius Caesar, while the hairstyle actually suggests a common priest of ancient Rome; moreover, the particular headband with an eight-pointed star properly recalls a priestly type character. The work could be dated to the third century. In addition to the Ptolemaic period funeral mask, it is also a large hourglass by Ptolemy Philadelphus, built in basalt stone but found in fragments at the Serapeo Campense in Rome. If on the outside some inscriptions dedicated to the Egyptian king Ptolemy II have been made, the inside instead presents some notches functional to the use of this instrument as an hourglass, which then actually became an offering vessel in the following centuries. It is also reminiscent of a canopic jar with lid cynocephalus, in calcite and belonging to the XXVI dynasty, and a rare leonine in wood ofXX dynasty.

Funerary Reliefs
Nearly all the reliefs in the Barracco Museum’s collection belong to the funerary sphere. They come from a type of tomb, the mastaba (from the Arabic word for bench), which was especially characteristic of Old Kingdom necropolises.

The tomb had two main parts: an underground chamber, accessible from a deep shaft, where the sarcophagus and the grave goods were placed; and an above-ground structure (a sort of truncated pyramid) that could include several rooms. One or more “false doors” represented the connection between the world of the living and that of the dead, the symbolic boundary that the dead person’s spirit (Ka) could magically cross to gather up the offerings.

A funerary stele with the deceased’s image was also placed in the mastaba. The dead person was often depicted seated at the table on which were laid out the offerings that were to accompany him or her on the journey to the afterlife. An inscription cited the deceased’s name and titles, together with a ritual phrase with which the sovereign himself mediated between the relatives and Osiris, lord of the dead. In this way, the deceased’s name was “made alive,” and his or her image was a true substitute capable of attending the ceremonies in his or her honor.

Sculpture
In sculpture in the round, the main subject is the human figure, depicted in a few standard types: the standing/walking figure, the sitting or kneeling figure, and the one shown in the characteristic position of the scribe. While the images of pharaohs and deities are strongly marked by idealization and abstraction, in private sculptures facial features are rendered with a greater aim at portrayal. Egyptian statuary follows strict compositional rules and is always connected with architecture, since the image replaces the presence of the real person in the building, whether temple or tomb.

The statues in the Barracco collection fall in different categories, but they all testify clearly to their function as “substitutes” in the performance of domestic activities (the roles of the ushabtis and the statuettes of servants) or participation in ceremonies in their honor (statues of the deceased or the sovereign); or as stand-ins for the god, the sovereign or a simple offerer.

Room 2
Egyptian and Mesopotamian Art
The display cases contain some foundation nails of the third dynasty of Ur, made of bronze, usually with an apotropaic purpose; they mainly come from southern Mesopotamia. Just ahead there is a winged genius kneeling to the right, an alabaster limestone relief dating back to the Assurnasirpal age and coming from the Palace of Nimrud; other reliefs from the same period are exhibited in the same sector. A last example of extraordinary workmanship is the relief depicting some women in a millstone, found in the city of Nineveh. Other reliefs to mention are those depicting some Assyrian archers, Elamite warriors, high-harness harnesses and horses, and other Elamite archers in full uniform, from the Ashurbanipal era, also from the Palace of Nineveh.

Egyptian Art

Sarcophagi
The ancient Egyptians usually defined the sarcophagus with the term “lord of life,” attributing to it the function of preserving the body so that it could pass through to the afterworld. In fact, the Egyptian religion believed that the Ka (the spirit) needed the body to survive after death. The oldest type of Egyptian sarcophagus is a stone or wooden chest, variously decorated and sometimes bearing inscriptions. The other type we know of is in the shape of a human mummy. At first these were made of papier mâché: later on they were made of wood or stone.

Ushabtis
Ushabtis (the Egyptian word means ”those who answer”) are mummy-shaped figurines that were an integral and indispensable part of burial goods. They are holding farm tools (a hoe and a sickle). Inscribed on the front of each figurine is a chapter from the Book of the Dead. Reciting the inscriptions gave life to the figurines, which would thus work in the deceased’s stead. The Egyptians believed that after death the body reached the Iaru Fields, rich in fruit, crops and delights of all kinds. There it would live happily ever after, with no worries, enjoying the same standard of living as in earthly life, because the ushabtis would perform all the person’s tasks and provide for all the necessities of life in the afterworld.

Mummy masks
Masks, like sarcophaguses, played an important role in Egyptian funeral rites. They gave the deceased person a face in the afterworld and enabled the Ka (spirit) to recognize its body. The museum owns two of these masks.

Mesopotamian Art

Foundation nails
The name given to objects of this kind refers to the fact that they were buried at different points beneath the foundations of buildings, especially temples. Their primary purpose was to commemorate the building’s construction, but they also had an economic/administrative meaning that was transferred to the transcendent level. They were supposed to evoke the pickets used to measure fields and mark out building floor plans on the ground, and also the clay pickets inserted horizontally in the upper part of the walls. These clay pickets seem to derive from a prototype, the “secular picket,” that was driven into the ground to mark changes of ownership or property claims.

Cuneiform writing
The development of cuneiform writing is attributed to the Sumerian civilization, which flourished in lower Mesopotamia in the late fourth and the third millenniums B.C. Cuneiform was one of the first forms of writing documented in antiquity. It derives from an earlier and simpler writing system, known as pictographs, in which words were indicated by schematic drawings of the things they indicated. The term “cuneiform” (wedge-shaped) refers to the fact that the characters were written on clay tablets with a triangular-pointed reed stylus that produced wedge-shaped marks (cunei in Latin).

Parthian Art
This is the term used to denote the art which, between the third century B.C. and the third century A.D., was characteristic of the area extending from the Iranian highlands to southern Mesopotamia. Many of the works produced in that period have elements in the Hellenistic style, but are distinguished from the latter by a greater use of decoration.

Assyrian reliefs
An important part of the collection is dedicated to Mesopotamian art and in particular to findings from the main buildings of the neo Assyrian kingdom. King Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC), the first great ruler of Neo-Assyrian empire, established the new capital of the kingdom at Nimrud (whose ancient name was Kalkhu), where he built the great North-West Palace. From one of the rooms of the palace, decorated with mythical-symbolic subjects, comes the great relief with kneeling winged genius. Sennacherib (704-681 BC) moved the capital of the kingdom to Nineveh. Here it was built the North Palace, also known as the “palace without a rival”, lavishly decorated with impressive wall decorations, celebrating the military takeover of the sovereign. Some fine reliefs with scenes of war and deportation of prisoners come from here.

Ashurbanipal (668-627 BC), whose reign saw the end of the neo-Assyrian empire, kept the capital at Nineveh, but he built a new palace: the North Palace. The building housed also the vast library the king had collected in all regions of Mesopotamia: more than 20,000 cuneiform tablets discovered in the English excavations of the XIX century (now in the British Museum) are the most precious cultural heritage left by the Mesopotamian civilization. From the North Palace come various numerous reliefs with scenes of hunting, war and deportation of prisoners.

Room 3
Etruscan art, Phoenician Art
This room displays examples of Etruscan and Phoenician art that enrich the overall picture conceived by Giovanni Barracco for the formation of his collection of artworks from the ancient civilizations that flourished around the Mediterranean basin.

The room shows some works of Etruscan manufacture, including a female head, originally placed as a decoration of a tomb near Bolsena and dated to the 2nd century BC. A fetus stone memorial stone with a splendid iconographic narration on the sides is also exhibited; the find comes from Chianciano, most likely it was made on commission and was attributed to an era between 500 and 460 BC

Room 4
Cypriot Art
A statue of Heracles-Melquart (early 5th century BC) is on display while dressing a lion skin and holding a small lion in his left hand: the work was donated to Baron Barracco in 1909. Another work in the same cultural area is a modest but valuable parade wagon with two characters, produced in polychrome limestone which most likely sees a mother with her son as protagonists during some cultural celebrations; it comes from Amatunte, a town on the island of Cyprus, and scholars date it to the second quarter of the fifth century BC

Phoenician Art
For the art of the ancient Phoenicians are exposed protome a lion in alabaster – located outside the room, on the landing – from Sant’Antioco (Sardinia) and placed between the IV and III century BC A little further on is the upper part of an anthropoid sarcophagus, more precisely the lid, dated to the end of the 5th century BC and originally from Sidon, one of the main cities of the Phoenician region.

Room 5
Greek Art
Room 5, devoted to Greek art, it displays a notable series of sculptures created between the late 6th century BC and the end of the 5th, plus fine Roman copies of Greek works from that period.

In the first room there are numerous testimonies of Greek art: two heads of Athena belonging to the severe style (5th century BC), and a Hermes Kriophoros from the first half of the same century; the oval shape of the face, the enlarged eyelids and the large fleshy lips highlight the first stylistic features of this new artistic period. On the side is the bust of the Silenus Marsyas of Mirone, who together with a statue of Athena made up a dedicated statuary group inside the Athenian Acropolis around 450 BC; however, it is a Roman copy in marbleparian, dating from the second century. Other examples of Greek statuary are the Apollonian head (Kassel type) depicting Apollo Parnopios, and another protome of the same god but attributed to Praxiteles. In the first case it is a copy of a bronze original, most likely dedicated by the inhabitants of Athens to have escaped an invasion of grasshoppers: the forms, greater than the reality, would suggest a dating around 460 BC, although it is a copy of the Flavian age (1st century). The statue of Praxitelesinstead it dates back to 350 BC and depicts the god without clothes while resting, with his right hand on his head.

Room 6
Greek Art
Room 6 displays numerous original Greek reliefs and sculptures, some votive works and others funerary. Alongside them are fine Roman copies of famous originals, which enrich the Barracco collection’s panorama of Greek sculpture in the 5th and 4th centuries BC and its reception by the Roman world. The showcases also display a collection of Greek vases and one of votive pottery from the Taranto area.

In the museum there are also some clay artefacts, such as a funerary relief with two male figures, in all probability an original attic of the fifth century BC; there is also a votive representation for Apollo (the dedication is made along the upper and lower edge) of the mid- fourth century BC, with four children and an elderly man, with the three divinities of Delphi: Leto, Apollo and Diana on the side. Finally, there are also numerous ceramics, represented by an Attic funeral lekythos and some Athenian black-figure amphoras from the first half of the5th century BC

Rooms 7-8
Hellenistic Art
These two little rooms display fine copies of Greek sculptures from the early Hellenistic period, together with a number of archaic works. Two showcases contain small artifacts in limestone and marble, and a collection of Greek and Italic pottery.

Among the works of the Hellenistic age there is a male head, a Roman reproduction of the second century, perhaps depicting Alexander the Great. Of great relevance is the representation of a wounded bitch replica in Pentelic marble of a bronze original by the copyist Sopatro, whose name is indicated with three letters on the basis of the work; at the time of Pliny the original work was still found at the Jupiter Capitoline temple in Rome.

Room 9
Roman and Medieval Art
This room displays Roman artworks, plus some medieval pieces that wind up the long chronological itinerary through the Barracco collection.

Italic and Roman art
There are some Roman works, such as the statue of a young man of the Giulio-Claudia family, perhaps the emperor Nero himself, discovered in the Villa di Livia (nicknamed ad gallinas albas at Prima Porta) and dating back to the first century. Next to it are three funerary steles from Palmira (Syria), depicting two women and a man of the third century, made of limestone.

Medieval Art
Here there is the fragment of a polychrome mosaic with large tesserae from the XII century commissioned by Pope Innocenzo III for the ancient basilica of San Pietro in Vaticano, removed during the construction of the new basilica by Michelangelo.

Barracco Library
The act of donation by which Giovanni Barracco donated his ancient sculptures collection to the City of Rome, included also his important specialist library. The library includes 278 works for a total of about 350 volumes, plus 160 briefs circa featured in the miscellany section.

The books of the library, published up to 1914, the year of Barracco’s death, include a valuable collection of Greek and Latin classics and a substantial selection of works dedicated to the artistic civilizations represented in the collection. It was Barracco who divided the library into broad areas: Egyptology and Oriental studies, classical art, ancient literary sources. The latter group, which fuelled Barracco’s passion for classical literature, features precious and rare specimens of the seventeenth and eighteenth century. But perhaps the most important section of the library is dedicated to Egyptology: featuring the twelve volumes (9 written texts and 3 illustrated folios) of the Monumenti dell’Egitto e della Nubia by Ippolito Rosellini (1800 – 1843) and the monumental work, in twelve large volumes, by Karl Richard Lepsius (1810-1884) entitled Denkmäler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien. The Barracco library includes also some copies of the impressive and extensive catalogue of the collection, published in French in 1893 by Bruckmann in Munich and dedicated to Queen Margherita: G. Barracco, W. Helbig, La collection Barracco, Münich 1893.

Pollak Library
Ludwig Pollak, archaeologist and antiquarian of international repute, was born in Prague in 1868. Arrived in Rome in 1893 he fell in love with ancient art, becaming in a few years a leading authority in the field. His friendship with Barracco dates back to last years of the XIX century, but their relationship became increasingly stronger towards the end of life of the collector. When Barracco died, Pollak was appointed honorary director of the Museum.

After dedicating most of his life to art, Ludwig Pollak was deported to Auschwitz with his family on October 16, 1943. In his house at Palazzo Odescalchi was part of his collection, a rich library and valuable archive. In 1951, Mrs Margarete Süssman Nicod, Pollak’s sister-in-law and only heir, donated the scholar’s entire library and archive of the to the City of Rome, because of his close relationship with the Barracco Museum, these documents were kept in the museum. Then a part of his collection went into the municipal collection. The Pollak library consists of 3034 miscellaneous texts: the most substantial section is certainly dedicated to Goethe, whom Pollak truly loved. Besides 34 autographical works by the German poet and a lock of his hair, the library hosts four editions of the complete works of Goethe and many other texts about the author for a total of 170 works and 237 volumes. Well represented are the sections dedicated to archaeology and art history, bibliophilia, auction catalogues, guides and city maps, writings on philosophy, music and theatre, German literature, classical history and literature, of history and politics.