The Museo di Roma is a museum in Rome, Italy, part of the network of Roman civic museums. The museum was founded in the Fascist era with the aim of documenting the local history and traditions of the "old Rome" that was rapidly disappearing, but following many donations and acquisitions of works of art is now principally an art museum. The collections initially included 120 water-colours by the nineteenth-century painter Ettore Roesler Franz of Roma sparita, "vanished Rome",[1] later moved to the Museo di Roma in Trastevere.[2]
History
The museum was founded by the art historianAntonio Muñoz [it], who was director of the Antichità e Belle Arti ("antiquities and fine arts department") of the government of Rome. It was the first civic museum of the city.[3]: 190 It was housed in the Pastificio Pantanella [it], a large former pasta factory in Piazza Bocca della Verità, overlooking the Circo Massimo in the via dei Cerchi, in the Ripa rione of the city. The factory building also housed the Museo dell'Impero Romano, and was renamed "Palazzo dei Musei". The Museo di Roma opened on 21 April 1930; Muñoz was its first director.[4] When the Second World War began in 1939, the museum closed.[1]
^Raffaella Catini (2012). Muñoz, Antonio (in Italian). Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, volume 77. Roma: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana. Accessed January 2016.
^Storia del museo (in Italian). Galleria Comunale d'Arte Moderna. Accessed January 2016.