Palermo's Museo Salinas: A Top Archaeological Museum Reopens with Bourbon Exhibition

The Museo Archeologico Regionale Antonino Salinas in Palermo, Sicily's oldest museum founded in 1814, reopened in 2016 after extensive restoration under director Francesca Spatafora. Ranked among the world's ten most fascinating archaeological museums by Corriere della Sera's Style Magazine in 2018, it houses Etruscan, Punic, Phoenician, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine artifacts. The museum recently inaugurated its final wing and is hosting the exhibition 'Palermo Capitale del Regno. I Borbone e l'archeologia a Palermo, Napoli e Pompei,' curated by Spatafora with a team of scholars. The show recalls Palermo's brief status as capital of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1816-1817, featuring artifacts donated by Bourbon kings Francesco I and Ferdinando II, as well as 19th-century excavation finds from Campania. It includes Roman copies of Greek originals like the Maenad from the Baths of Caracalla and a Satyr after Praxiteles. The exhibition involves the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli and the Archaeological Parks of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The museum also engages with contemporary arts—theater, film, music, visual arts—and runs educational programs, with CoopCulture managing additional services.