Naples Attractions

Venue: Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli    When: Daily; not Tue

If you've ever dreamed of being a degenerate Roman emperor, this is your chance: wander in and dream yourself away among the bacchanalian exhibits of the "Secret Cabinet" - an erotic art exhibition at the Museum of National Archaeology in Naples. Once deemed too explicit for public display, these long-hidden items have at long last re-emerged and are now freely accessible to the public.

Even before the opening of the museum, many of these items were already secured away from the eyes of the public, accessible only with a special permit. Once they moved to Naples they were on display until 1819, when King Francesco I decreed that they were to be closed off in a room which only "persons of mature age, known to be possessed of a strong morality" were permitted to enter.

After Garibaldi marched into Napoli in the 19th century the collection was opened again, only to be closed under the Fascist regime. In the years since Mussolini fell the exhibits have lingered in limbo; only today are they restored to their full glory.

The exhibition itself contains some spectacular items: satyrs and goats, pygmies and nymphs, half-human beasts and bestial humans. The items are divided according to timelines and their various functional categories. The Vesuvian artefacts are also sorted according to context and origins, divided into categories such as mythological paintings, sculptures and paintings used to decorate gardens, and the often rougher and more explicit objects from less affluent private houses. There are many minor decorative objects, talismans, fetishes and objects from other archaeological sites, some of them pre-Roman.