Museum capsule reviews, part 2

 Frosinone: Museo Archeologico Comunale

I first tried to go in 2017, to see some architectural terracottas relevant to my dissertation, but the hours were wrong. Hadn't managed to get there again. It was open this time, but the terracottas were in another castle. Unbeknownst to me, the Roman section of the museum (Republican and Imperial both) has been moved to a second location, which is only open on special occasions (needless to say I wasn't there on one of those). The material remaining in the original site (two and a half galleries) includes pre- and protohistory as well as Volscian tomb-groups and a single but important Archaic female head antefix indicating the presence of sacred architecture of some standing in the 6th c. BCE. Upstairs is a Volscian tomb discovered near a roundabout north of Frosinone (there was no label information, but that was what the museum staff told me). So anyway the Frosinone museum holds the lead in the series against me, 2-1.

Castro dei Volsci: Museo Civico Archeologico and Roman villa

Four small galleries, of which three are dedicated to the Roman villa at Casale di Madonna del Piano, across the street from the museum and visitable for a small additional fee. Roman villas aren't really my thing (though of course anything ancient is my thing), but this one is interesting in having a use-life spanning something like the 1st c. BCE to the 8th or 9th c. CE (though at some point the pars urbana goes out of use, and it becomes purely rustic, until someone builds a church into some of the rooms, and then the Longobards show up and start burying their dead). In the first, non-villa room are a handful of Mid-Republican Etrusco-Latial-Campanian votive terracottas and miniature pots from a pair of probably open-air sanctuaries on the slopes of Monte Nero in Castro dei Volsci, which the museum panels identify as likely being Satricum Volscorum (distinct from Satricum southeast of Rome with its temple of Mater Matuta, which however also has a Volscian phase). If you're there, you might as well also see the villa, which has some mosaic floors and a seemingly wildly-overbuilt steel shelter, but honestly I wouldn't go out of my way to see it (apologies to the pro loco of Castro dei Volsci...).

Pastena: Museo della Civiltà Contadina

I don't generally love guided tours, but they make more sense in the many museums of "peasant culture" scattered around Italy, which often lack the labels and didactic apparatus of your typical archaeological museum. I was mostly happy to see a pair of local amphorae, called cannate, which have a sort of stirrup-jar like form with upswung handles and a spout. They have red and black tempera decoration, and were made in the nearby town of Pontecorvo in the 19th and 20th century (and possibly earlier, though I don't know enough), dying out in the 1970s. There's a single potter in Pontecorvo working today, who has partially revived the tradition, processing all of his own clay, with a kiln in the back of his workshop, but his pots lack the gracility of the classic cannate (I still bought a pair of them, because I think he's doing something important, even if it seems likely that the tradition will die, again, with him).

Ausonia: Museo della Pietra

I happened to be able to be there for the museum's reopening after a reinstallation (missed the ceremonies and the preceding explicatory talks, though, so I'm lacking that context). It's installed in a tiny castle at the top of the town (next to a church that has a couple of spolia altars with Latin dedications to Hercules). The museum only has a handful of artifacts (four additional Latin inscriptions; two stone lions, originally from Roman tomb monuments, which were reused in the Middle Ages to mark the town's northern boundary with Cassino, and smashed up at a certain point by the townsfolk when they wanted to surreptitiously extend their claims; and a collection of stonecutters' tools donated by local stonecutters); where it really shines is in the didactic panels, which present information on the geology and geography of the area, its dry-stone masonry traditions, and cultural practices having to do with stone. The museum also launched an ethnographic campaign to interview said stonecutters. These are visible in a video terminal, but each one lasts over an hour. They seemed to be hosted on youtube, so I was hoping to find them there, but thus far no luck.

Museum capsule reviews, part 1

I've been meaning for some time to put down slightly more formed thoughts about museums I've visited. I should have started doing it twenty years ago, but better late than never. Assessments are from my own, highly partial, particular (and peculiar) point of view.

Thoughts on the recently visited:

Artena: Museo Civico Archeologico "Roger Lambrechts"

A small but well done museum, with a recent-ish (2009) installation. All of the material comes from the ancient site up the hill at Civita di Artena and its territory. (The name of the modern town has been applied, probably wrongly, on the basis of an ancient Volscian town attested by Livy.) The museum has two rooms, one with Archaic and Republican materials, the other mostly Imperial. I appreciated putting all the (numerous!) Genucilia plates on display, allowing an appreciation of variation within the series. And the rest of the Mid-Republican material is great to see (arulae! architectural terracottas! all the common and cookware you could want!). And decently lit. 

Valmontone: Palazzo Doria Pamphilj

At the moment, aside from a handful of inscriptions immured in the entryway, there are only two objects on display, both sarcophagi. (I was hoping to see the section advertised on the website, with artifacts discovered during the construction of the high speed rail line through the area, but the place seems to be undergoing renovation.)

Of particular interest to me was the earlier one, a massive monolithic tuff sarcophagus found at Valmontone in 2011, of broad Mid-Republican (4th-3rd c. BCE) date. A growing number of these have come to light in the areas around the Colli Albani, and they're really deserving of a more thorough study. Of more interest to most people would probably be the later, marble strigilated sarcophagus, mid-3rd c. CE with lions devouring ibexes. The lid, with a representation of roof tiles and antefixes, is interesting. You'll want to go while there is daylight, because the lighting leaves something to be desired.

Anagni: Museo della Cattedrale

Go to see the richly frescoed medieval crypt of Saint Magnus! But there is also some archaeology to be seen. Of note, a Roman ceramic pig rattle with blue glass-paste inserts, of a type that has been hypothesized to be souvenirs from the Temple of Hercules at Tivoli. Plenty of epigraphy (including a big Severan inscription recording the paving of the road from Villa Magna to Anagni, reused as paving in the cathedral). A small collection of ELC votive terracottas. A strange sort of Republican(?) pyxis. A curious red figure krater with a horseman and a kitharode. Daylight helps. Some classic Late Republican triglyph and metope frieze spolia in the front of the cathedral.

A highlight is the inscribed stone thesauros from some ancient sanctuary in the area. A stroke of museological genius has this installed such that it reprises its original function, and you can make your own offering to the museum:

Anagni: Museo Archeologico Ernico

Despite opening with some fanfare in May 2023, it is currently closed with a rusty padlock. Chissà... 

More to follow, hopefully in a more or less timely fashion. (And photos, eventually, hopefully.) Also, I think I need to update the layout of the blog to make it more legible on smartphones?