The Capitoline Museums ★★

These museums atop Rome's Campidoglio connected by the Tabularium house iconic ancient statues (she-wolf, colossal statue of Constantine, Lo Spinario, Dying Gaul, etc.) and great art by Caravaggio, Titian, and Rubens

Stuffed with iconic ancient statues and mosaics as well as Renaissance and baroque masterpieces by Caravaggio, Rubens, Titian, and Tintoretto, the twinned Capitoline Museums sit on opposite sides of the Campidoglio (Capitoline Hill).

Since 2000, the two wings been connected by an underground tunnel through the famed Tabularium, the ancient Roman archives that were discovered just beneath the Palazzo Senatorio, where Rome's modern mayor still holds court.

The Palazzo Nuovo

As you stand in the Michelangelo-designed Piazza del Campidoglio atop the Capitoline Hill and face the middle palace, it is the two buildings on either side that together house the museum.

Unless they've changed it yet again, you now have to start with the building on your left, the Palazzo Nuovo half of the museum, filled with ancient sculpture such as the Dying Gaul, busts of ancient philosophers, the Mosaic of the Doves, and the Capitoline Venus.

The Palazzo Nuovo also contains, in a glassed-in portico just off the courtyard against one wall of which reclines the river god Marforio (traditionally one of Rome's famous "talking statues"), the original 2nd-century AD equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, which until 1981 stood on on the central pedestal of the Piazza del Campidoglio out front.

This gilded bronze original had been tossed into the Tiber in antiquity, and when Christians later fished it out, they mistakenly thought it was Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor.

This misinterpretation for centuries saved it from being hacked to pieces as a pagan idol and earned it pride of place in the piazza atop the Capitoline Hill (until it was removed for restoration and—eventually—a copy was stuck there in its place).

That may merely induce a "so what?" shrug, but think about this: How many statues of famous men triumphantly riding horses you've seen scattered in cities around the world? Lots, right?

Well, this statue of Marcus Aurelius is the only ancient Roman equestrian statue to have survived the ages intact, and as such was the inspiration for every single one that came after it, serving as the touchstone for this now-common form of commemorative art.

(If that doesn't do it for you: the modern copy they stuck on the piazza outside was precision-made using lasers; cool.)

Connecting the two museums (a peek-a-boo Forum view)

You no longer cross Piazza del Campidoglio to get from one branch of the museum to the other. Instead, you go underground to follow that Tabularium tunnel—diverging down the side corridor for a great view across the Roman Forum—to the museum’s other half, the Palazzo dei Conservatori.

Romulus, Remus, and the She-Wolf
Rome was legendarily founded by twin brothers, Romulus and Remus, who had been abandoned in the woods and raised by a she-wolf. Romulus later quarreled with and killed Remus à la Cain and Abel—which is why you're visiting "Rome" and not "Reme"—but that heroic she-wolf with the overactive motherly instincts became the most famous of the trio, and since ancient times has been the symbol of Rome itself and all the city and its Empire stands for.

The Palazzo dei Conservatori

The collections have their share of famous antique statuary:

• The 1st-century Spinario, a little bronze boy picking a thorn out of his foot.
• The Etruscan bronze She-Wolf, crafted in the late 5th century B.C. (the suckling toddlers were added in the 16th century; see sidebar).

The real stars of the collection, however, are the paintings.

The museum's second-floor pinacoteca (painting gallery) houses works by Il Guercino, Veronese, Titian, Tintoretto, Rubens, Pietro da Cortona, and two by Caravaggio—one of his Gypsy Fortune-Teller works and the scandalously erotic St. John the Baptist, in which the nubile young saint twists to embrace a ram and looks out at us coquettishly.

OK, so the paintings are great. What everybody remembers from this museum, though, is the palazzo's courtyard. This open space is filled with what, all things being equal, probably constitutes the most popular display in the entire place: the oversized marble head, hands, foot, arm, and kneecap of what was once a 12m (40-ft.) statue of Constantine II.

Odds are you've seen dozens of postcards all over Rome featuring cats lazing around on these giant marble body parts (or people posing goofily beside them).

Incidentally, it's not that the statue was hacked up and these bits are all that remains. The rest of the original statue—i.e. the flowing robes out of which these bits stuck—was most likely made of wood and, as such, didn't survive the millennia intact.

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