Rome's Invisible Museum: The 80-Year Closure of the Antiquarium Comunale

The Antiquarium Comunale del Celio in Rome, a museum housing a vast archaeological collection, has been closed since 1939 due to structural damage from metro B construction. Originally designed by architect Costantino Sneider in 1885 as a grand Beaux-Arts museum, the building was partially completed and later used as a storage facility. Its collection, now packed in about 1,000 crates containing roughly 80,000 artifacts spanning from prehistoric to late ancient Rome, remains largely inaccessible. The collection was stripped in 1925 for the Museo Mussolini (later Museo Nuovo) at Villa Caffarelli. Over the decades, art historian Federico Zeri championed its reopening, notably in a 1996 Rai program "L'arte negata." Recent developments include PNRR funding announced in April 2022 for restoration, and temporary exhibitions at Palazzo Caffarelli, such as "La Roma dei Re" (2018) and "La Roma della Repubblica" (2023). The exhibition "1932, L'Elefante e il Colle Perduto" at Mercati di Traiano (until May 24, 2023) also draws from this collection. Claudio Parisi Presicce, co-curator, notes that since 2007, crates have been reopened and artifacts cataloged, aiming for a future museum that tells the story of daily life in ancient Rome.