The National Roman Museum of Palazzo Massimo is due to be opened today by President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, returning priceless ancient works of art to public view after 14 years of restoration, Philip Willan writes from Rome. Just a few minutes walk from Termini station, the museum houses ancient statues, mosaics and frescoed rooms, many of them on display to the public for the first time. "Palazzo Massimo is perhaps the most important archaeological museum of Rome," a Culture Ministry spokeswoman said. The Deputy Prime Minister and Culture Minister, Mr Walter Veltroni, due to attend the inauguration, said the restoration of a series of Italy's most prestigious cultural sites constituted a "message of seriousness and radical novelty in the history of our country". The museum's culture superintendent, Mr Adriano La Regina, said he expected the Ancient Roman paintings would have a profound impact on visitors, who might be accustomed to seeing Roman sculptures but are unlikely to have had the opportunity to see such fine murals. Some of the most impressive come from imperial villas, which were decorated by the foremost painters of the time.
"The best artists were called to decorate the noble villas of Rome. What you see in Pompeii is provincial in comparison," a museum archeologist said. One reconstructed room, from the villa of the Emperor Augustus's wife Livia, shows cool green vegetation and a blue sky filled with flying birds to give the impression to visitors that they were surrounded by a sacred wood.
Augustus himself appears in the museum in the shape of a larger-than-life marble statue, alongside a sensuous Aphrodite and a fine discus thrower, a perfect Roman copy of an Ancient Greek original. Tourists amazed at the beauty of what they see may also have cause to wonder how the Italian authorities could have kept these treasures hidden for so long.