A new museum with a focus on the ancient Roman city of Pompeii is slated to open in the Italian city Naples.
The space is set to measure 103,000 square meters (1.1 million square feet), and will be designed by architect Paolo Desideri. It will be located within the former Albergo dei Poveri, a building also known as the Palazzo Fuga. This new institution will serve as a sister museum to the Museo Nazionale Archaeologico Napoli (MANN) and will therefore be known as MANN 2.
The building has sat empty for decades, and the new museum is part of a larger city-wide revitalization effort meant to improve tourism. A vast collection of artifacts that have otherwise been sitting in storage, due to insufficient exhibition space, will now be housed in the previously abandoned site.
A section of the museum will be focused Pompeii, which was preserved in ash following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. The museum has more than 40,000 objects from the ancient city’s excavation in its holdings.
The showcase will spotlight remains from the city and chart their discovery in the 18th century. There will also be a series of exhibitions honoring historically notable archaeologists such as Giuseppe Fiorelli, Vittorio Spinazzola, and Amedeo Maiuri. Additionally, there will be interactive rooms and areas devoted to research.
“In Palazzo Fuga we do not want to replicate a collection already well told in the MANN itself: rather, we are going to create a space dedicated to the history of the rediscovery of the Vesuvian sites through artefacts, but also reconstructions, panels, and multimedia supports”, Massimo Osanna, Italy’s director general of museums, told the Collector.
Parts of MANN 2’s building will also house a branch of the National Archaeological Museum of Naples and the city’s National Library; more than half of the building will operate as classrooms for the University of Naples Federico II. A bookshop, café, and panoramic terrace will also be part of the renovation.
Funded at €158 million ($170 million), the project is expected to be completed in mid-2026.
