Museo dell'Arte Classica

The Museum of Classical Art was founded (with the name of Museum of Casts) in 1892 by Emanuel Löwy, the first scholar in Italy to be appointed professor of Archaeology and History of Art when he accepted the chair at the University of Rome. Inspired by the established collections of artistic casts at German universities, Löwy wanted to create a collection of plaster casts of Greek statues (using original artefacts and Roman copies) as an effective tool for education. At first established in some rooms of a building in the Testaccio district of Rome, in 1925 the Museum moved to the “St. Michael’s Institute” in Trastevere before transferring to its current location on the “città universitaria” in 1935. Between 1995 and 2000 the Museum underwent large-scale restoration and reorganisation. With its magnificent collection of around one thousand two hundred casts displayed chronologically in fifty-six rooms the Museum of Classical Art provides a vast documentary source for the study of Greek sculpture from the Archaic to the Hellenistic periods. In many cases comparison may be made between several different casts of original artefacts which are now lost. The Museum also preserves many recostrunctions of ancient sculptures made by Italian and foreign scholars as well as a collection of casts from gemstones. The Odeion of the Museum is used for university lectures and also conventions and conferences, while The Atrium hosts archaeological exhibitions.