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Naples is a city that does not have much use for museums as there is so much to see outside and many of the city's treasures can be found in the churches and their original homes. There is one museum that is worth al look. Museo Archeologico Nazionale , national Archeological museum houses the Farnese collection of antiquities that includes the best of the treasures from the digs at Pompeii and Herculaneum. If you are planning to visit the actual sites that are nearby to Naples it is worth a visit to the museum first. In the great hall you can find the pieces of sculpture from the baths of Carcalla such as the Farnese Bulll the largest sculpture ever uncovered. There is also an entire floor dedicated to the mosaics that provide an insite into everyday roman life. Perhaps the most interesting of rooms in the museum is the secret room, gabinetto segreto that houses all of the erotic material removed from the brothels and bath houses of Pompeii and Herulaneum. The treasures consist of wall paintings portraying sensual ladies reclining languidly or lamps shaped like a phallus! There are some rather strange marble structures including one of Pan having sex with a goat. On the upper floor are roman figures and wall paintings literally lifted from the walls of villas and houses in Pompeii, amazing to see the presentation of Greek mythological passages, Dido being abandoned by Aeneas and Helen and the Trojan horse. The upper floor also has household contents such as silverware and glassware found at the sites. |