Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (MANN)

The Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, known as MANN, occupies the Palazzo degli Studi on Piazza Museo, a building begun in 1585 as a cavalry barracks and later used as a university. It was converted into a museum under the Bourbons from 1777 and opened to the public in the early 19th century, and it now holds one of the most important collections of Greek and Roman antiquities in the world. The core of the museum is the Farnese collection, inherited by Charles of Bourbon, which includes the colossal Farnese Hercules and Farnese Bull. The finds from Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae and Oplontis, excavated from the 18th century onward, form another major section and include frescoes, mosaics, bronzes, household objects and carbonised items from the Vesuvius eruption of 79 CE. The Alexander Mosaic, from the House of the Faun in Pompeii, depicts the battle between Alexander the Great and Darius and is the best known single work. The Secret Cabinet houses erotic art from Pompeii, and the Egyptian collection, one of the largest in Italy, shows the Egyptian objects acquired in the 19th century. Displays are arranged by collection and by site, moving through the sculpture galleries on the ground floor to the mezzanine mosaics and the first-floor Pompeian rooms. The building has undergone repeated renovation, most recently to reorganise galleries and improve lighting and access, and the museum is administered as a national museum. Because of the size of the collection, many visitors choose a selection of rooms and use the audioguide for orientation.