Museo Nazionale Romano: Palazzo Altemps

Lonely Planet review

Palazzo Altemps dates to the late 15th century but takes its name from the Altemps family who purchased it in 1568. A beautiful building in its own right, it was given a major makeover in the 1990s and today houses the best of the Museo Nazionale Romano's formidable collection of classical sculpture.

Many of the exhibits come from the enormous private collection of the 17th-century cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi. A nephew of Pope Gregory XV, Ludovisi was a ravenous collector of the ancient sculpture that was being unearthed during the building boom of Counter-Reformation Rome. He employed leading sculptors - including Bernini and Alessandro Algardi - to repair and 'enhance' the works by replacing missing limbs and sticking new heads on headless torsos. Prize exhibits (untouched by the baroque fixers) include the 5th-century marble Trono Ludovisi (Ludovisi Throne), in Room 21. Discovered at the end of the 19th century in the grounds of the Villa Ludovisi, it depicts Aphrodite being plucked from the sea as a newborn babe. Most scholars think that it originally came from Magna Grecia, the Greek colony in southern Italy, but there are some who claim it's a 19th-century fake.