National Archaeological Museum of Naples

The Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, known as MANN, is the essential companion to Pompeii and Herculaneum, because the finest things found there are here. Housed in a vast red palazzo at the top of Via Toledo, built in the sixteenth century as cavalry barracks and later home to the university, the museum was shaped by the Bourbon kings, who brought together two extraordinary sources: the excavations of the buried cities and the Farnese collection inherited through Elisabetta Farnese. The result is one of the most important classical collections on earth. On the ground floor, the Farnese sculptures overwhelm by sheer scale: the Farnese Hercules, resting on his club after his labours, and the Farnese Bull, the largest sculptural group to survive from antiquity, carved from a single block of marble, both found in the Baths of Caracalla in Rome. On the mezzanine, the mosaics from Pompeii include the Nile scenes, the portrait of a skull as memento mori, and the celebrated Alexander Mosaic from the House of the Faun, depicting Alexander the Great at the Battle of Issus, which has been undergoing a long, carefully staged restoration in view of visitors. The Secret Cabinet (Gabinetto Segreto) gathers the erotic art of Pompeii, once locked away from all but gentlemen of rank and now open to all, with a parental advisory. Upstairs, the great frescoes from Pompeian houses, the reconstruction of the Temple of Isis, the bronzes and papyri from the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, and the vast Salone della Meridiana complete a collection that could fill several days. Downstairs, a rich Egyptian collection adds another world.

Practicalities: MANN is open from morning to early evening every day except Tuesday, when it is closed. The Museo stop on Metro Line 1 and the Piazza Cavour stop on Line 2 put you at the door, and the historic centre is a ten-minute walk downhill. Tickets are moderately priced; skip-the-line entry with an audio guide or a two-hour guided tour is available through Tiqets, and the museum is included in the Campania Artecard, a regional pass worth pricing if you plan several museums and sites. Sections occasionally close for reorganisation or temporary exhibitions, so it is worth checking which galleries are open, especially if a particular piece is the reason you are going. Large bags go to the cloakroom.

A sensible route takes two and a half to three hours. Start with the Farnese sculptures on the ground floor, then climb to the mezzanine for the mosaics and the Secret Cabinet, and continue to the first floor for the frescoes, the Temple of Isis room and the Villa of the Papyri bronzes, finishing in the Salone della Meridiana. Leave the Egyptian collection for a second visit unless it is a passion. A guide or the audio guide is particularly valuable here, because labels are uneven and the stories behind the objects — which house a fresco came from, how a bronze was found — are what make the connection to the sites you will walk.

Should you see MANN before or after Pompeii? There is a case for both: before, and you will recognise in situ the houses whose decoration you have seen; after, and the museum fills in the colour and detail missing from the ruins. Either way, do not skip it — a visit to Pompeii without MANN is like reading half a book. Families do well with the mosaics of animals and the gladiator armour; the Secret Cabinet is easy to steer around. Afterward, walk down Via Pessina toward Piazza Dante and the historic centre, or north into the Sanità for the catacombs.