Museo civico oraziano

Archaeological museum in the baronial palace of Licenza with finds from the excavations of the Villa di Orazio.

Opening hoursFree admission

About the museum

The museum is housed in the Palazzo Baronale Orsini-Borghese in Licenza and holds most of the material unearthed in the excavations led by Angelo Pasqui at the Villa di Orazio from 1911 onwards. It is part of the Licenza Musei system, which also includes the Villa di Orazio.

The display illustrates above all daily life in the villa in the Augustan age, rather than monumental statuary: explanatory panels describe the villa and its historical and territorial context, alongside a collection of plaster casts of Sabine funerary monuments with a Doric frieze.

Architectural elements in marble, fragments of Corinthian capitals, stuccoes, frescoes, floors and mosaics, sculptures, reliefs, ceramics and small objects of everyday and personal use are on display, such as bone hairpins, oil lamps, loom weights, jewellery, blown glass and coins. In the rooms near the palace tower there are fragments of frescoes with winged sphinxes and grotesque decoration, and lead water pipes from the aqueduct are visible, some bearing the names of their makers.

Highlights

Finds from the excavations of the Villa di Orazio (from 1911)
Plaster casts of Sabine funerary monuments
Fragments of frescoes with winged sphinxes and grotesque decoration
Lead water pipes (fistulae aquariae) with makers' stamps
Everyday objects: oil lamps, jewellery, glass, coins

Permanent exhibition

Reperti della Villa di Orazio – Everyday objects, frescoes, mosaics, sculptures and plaster casts from the excavations of the villa.