The National Museum of the Palazzo Venezia in Rome is housed in what was once the grand papal residence of the Venetian Paolo II Barbo (1464 – 1471), a great lover of collecting and the ideal initiator of the museum and artistic destiny of the building. Established in 1921, the Museum focuses its interest on the so-called “applied arts.”
Its collections were formed from an initial core of sculptures and works coming from Castel Sant’Angelo, the National Gallery of Ancient Art, and the collections of the nearby College Romano museum founded in the seventeenth century by the encyclopedic Jesuit Athanasius Kircher.
The artistic material of the original collection consisted mainly of works from the medieval and Renaissance periods, showcasing particular sectors of decorative art such as small bronzes, enamels, marbles, and Italian-made ceramics.
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