Rome, Palazzo Farnese opens its Sotterranei for the first time: mosaic floors from Ancient Rome visible

Beginning May 29, 2024, theEmbassy of France in Italy in Rome and Mirabilia Art Wonders, the company responsible for organizing guided tours of Palazzo Farnese, will open for the first time to the public, every Wednesday by reservation only, the Underground of Palazzo Farnese, which holds two extraordinary mosaic floors from Ancient Rome. A major safety and accessibility work has thus been carried out in this space. The interventions also included the creation of a lighting system in order to highlight the beauty of the mosaics.

The public will thus have the posibility of discovering two large black-and-white mosaic floors dating from the period between the late first century AD and the Severan dynasty, between 193 and 235 AD.

The Marine Mosaic, which covers an area of about 9 by 4 meters, has horizontal black lines symbolizing waves, in the midst of which real (mollusks, torpedo fish, lampreys, cuttlefish, dolphins) and imaginary (dragons, griffon-headed monsters, Nereids, sea horses) aquatic creatures are waving. Beneath the floor, the discovery of flooring on stilts, the suspensurae, makes it difficult to identify the function of the ancient building, although it is possible to assume that it was a bath complex.

In contrast, the Mosaic of the Acrobats, stylistically dated to the reign of Domitian (81-96 CE), measures 7 by 5 meters; it depicts four naked acrobats alternately standing and sitting on their horses, all converging toward the center of the room. The theme of this mosaic is exceptional for Roman art, since the acrobatic postures do not correspond to the usual iconography of the desultores, horsemen who are usually depicted jumping from horse to horse or running alongside their steeds; moreover, the nudity and type of exercise of the acrobats in the Palazzo Farnese are rather reminiscent of ancient Greek or Etruscan representations, which may have been reinterpreted a few centuries later for the creation of this mosaic. Again, it is unclear to which building this work belonged, although the latest hypotheses point to the probable existence of a stable, a stabula factionum.

Tours of the dungeons, curated by Mirabilia Art Wonders, take place every Wednesday at 5 p.m. as part of the guided tours of Palazzo Farnese, by reservation only through the official website https://visite-palazzofarnese.it/ , in Italian and French in alternating weeks.

Rome, Palazzo Farnese opens its Sotterranei for the first time: mosaic floors from Ancient Rome visible

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