Farnese Bull

The Farnese Atlas is a 2nd-century AD Roman marble sculpture of Atlas holding up a celestial globe. Probably a copy of an earlier work of the Hellenistic period, it is the oldest extant statue of Atlas, a Titan of Greek mythology who is represented in earlier Greek vase painting, and the oldest known representation of the celestial spheres and the classical constellations. The sculpture is at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, in Italy. The statue is dated around AD 150, during the Roman Empire and after the composition of the Almagest by Claudius Ptolemy, but the celestial globe has long been presumed to represent constellations mapped in earlier Hellenistic astrology, particularly in the work of Hipparchus in the 2nd century BC.Atlas labors under the weight because he had been sentenced by Zeus to hold up the sky. The sphere shows a depiction of the night sky as seen from outside the outermost celestial sphere, with low reliefs depicting 41 (some sources say 42) of the 48 classical Greek constellations distinguished by Ptolemy, including Aries the ram, Cygnus the swan and Hercules the hero. The sculpture stands seven feet (2.1 meters) tall, and the sphere is 65 centimeters (26 inches) in diameter. The name Farnese Atlas reflects its acquisition by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese in 1562, and its subsequent exhibition in the Villa Farnese.

The Farnese Hercules (Italian: Ercole Farnese) is an ancient statue of Hercules, probably an enlarged copy made in the early third century AD and signed by Glykon, who is otherwise unknown; the name is Greek but he may have worked in Rome. Like many other Ancient Roman sculptures it is a copy or version of a much older Greek original that was well known, in this case a bronze by Lysippos (or one of his circle) that would have been made in the fourth century BC. This original survived for over 1500 years until it was melted down by Crusaders in 1205 during the Sack of Constantinople. The enlarged copy was made for the Baths of Caracalla in Rome (dedicated in 216 AD), where the statue was recovered in 1546, and is now in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples. The heroically-scaled Hercules is one of the most famous sculptures of antiquity, and has fixed the image of the mythic hero in the European imagination. The Farnese Hercules is a massive marble statue, following a lost original that was cast in bronze through a method called lost wax casting. It depicts a muscular, yet weary, Hercules leaning on his club, which has the skin of the Nemean lion draped over it. In myths about Heracles, killing the lion was his first task. He has just performed one of the last of The Twelve Labours, which is suggested by the apples of the Hesperides he holds behind his back. The type was well known in antiquity, and among many other versions a Hellenistic or Roman bronze reduction, found at Foligno is in the Musée du Louvre. A small Roman marble copy can be seen over the Museum of the Ancient Agora, Athens (see illustration).

The Venus Callipyge, also known as the Aphrodite Kallipygos (Greek: Ἀφροδίτη Καλλίπυγος) or the Callipygian Venus, all literally meaning "Venus (or Aphrodite) of the beautiful buttocks", is an Ancient Roman marble statue, thought to be a copy of an older Greek original. In an example of anasyrma, it depicts a partially draped woman, raising her light peplos to uncover her hips and buttocks, and looking back and down over her shoulder, perhaps to evaluate them. The subject is conventionally identified as Venus (Aphrodite), though it may equally be a portrait of a mortal woman. The marble statue extant today dates to the late 1st century BC. The lost Greek original on which it is based is thought to have been bronze, and to have been executed around 300 BC, towards the beginning of the Hellenistic period. The provenance of the marble copy is unknown, but it was rediscovered, missing its head, in the early modern period. The head was restored, first in the 16th century and again in the 18th century (in which case the sculptor followed the earlier restoration fairly closely); the restored head was made to look over the shoulder, drawing further attention to the statue's bare buttocks, thereby contributing to its popularity. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the statue was identified as Venus and associated with a temple to Aphrodite Kallipygos at Syracuse, discussed by Athenaeus in his Deipnosophistae. The statue was copied a number of times, including by Jean-Jacques Clérion and François Barois. It is part of the Farnese Collection in the National Archaeological Museum, Naples (Inv. numb. 6020).

The National Archaeological Museum of Naples (Italian: Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, sometimes abbreviated to MANN) is an important Italian archaeological museum, particularly for ancient Roman remains. Its collection includes works from Greek, Roman and Renaissance times, and especially Roman artifacts from the nearby Pompeii, Stabiae and Herculaneum sites. From 1816 to 1861 it was known as Real Museo Borbonico ("the Royal Bourbon Museum").

The Secret Museum or Secret Cabinet (Italian: Gabinetto Segreto) in Naples refers to the collection of 1st-century Roman erotic art found in Pompeii and Herculaneum, now held in separate galleries at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, the former Museo Borbonico. The term "cabinet" is used in reference to the "cabinet of curiosities" - i.e. any well-presented collection of objects to admire and study. Re-opened, closed, re-opened again and then closed again for nearly 100 years, the secret room was briefly made accessible again at the end of the 1960s before being finally re-opened in 2000. Since 2005 the collection has been kept in a separate room in the Naples National Archaeological Museum. Although the excavation of Pompeii was initially an Enlightenment project, once artifacts were classified through a new method of taxonomy, those deemed obscene and unsuitable for the general public were termed pornography and in 1821 they were locked away in a Secret Museum. The doorway was bricked up in 1849. Throughout ancient Pompeii and Herculaneum, erotic frescoes, depictions of the god Priapus, sexually explicit symbols and inscriptions, and household items such as phallic oil lamps were found. The ancient Roman understanding of sexuality viewed explicit material very differently from most present-day cultures. Ideas about obscenity developed from the 18th century to the present day into a modern concept of pornography. At Pompeii, locked metal cabinets were constructed over erotic frescos, which could be shown, for an additional fee, to gentlemen but not to ladies. This peep show was still in operation at Pompeii in the 1960s. The cabinet was only accessible to "people of mature age and respected morals", which in practice meant only educated men. The catalogue of the secret museum was also a form of censorship, as engravings and descriptive texts played down the content of the room.

The Church of Santa Maria di Costantinopoli is a 16th-century Roman Catholic church located on the street of the same name in Naples, Italy, and located a block north of the Academy of Fine Arts of Naples.

Santa Teresa degli Scalzi (previously known as the church of Santa Teresa al Museo, or of Santa Teresa agli studi or della Madre di Dio) is a church in Naples, Italy, located in via Santa Teresa degli Scalzi, a wide street opened during 1806–1810, to connect the historic center of Naples to the zone of Capodimonte. The church is generally closed to the public. Church construction began in 1604 and the church was consecrated in 1612 under the Order of Discalced Carmelites thanks to the donations obtained by the Spanish Carmelite follower of St Teresa of Avila, the preacher Pietro della Madre di Dio.

Sant'Andrea delle Dame was an Augustinian monastery church dedicated to Saint Andrew with associated cloister and monastic buildings in Naples. The monastic buildings later became one of the buildings of the Università degli studi di Napoli and - after the establishment of the medicine faculty of the Università degli Studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli - now house that faculty's Naples headquarters. It was founded by four daughters of the notary Andrea Palescandolo in 1580 and designed either by their Theatine brother Marco Palescandolo or by Francesco Grimaldi. It opened on 7 March 1587, with the cloister completed early in the 17th century and a belvedere-style cloister known as the "Torretta reale" added in 1748. It was suppressed under the French occupation and the monastic church was deconsecrated in 1884. It was damaged by bombing and bombardment during the Second World War, but its original features survived. The church was restored in 2004.

Museo is a station on line 1 of the Naples Metro. It was opened on 5 April 2001 as the eastern terminus of the section of the line between Vanvitelli and Museo. On 27 March 2002 the line was extended to Dante. The station is located between Materdei and Dante. Materdei station was added to the line on 5 July 2003, and before that date, the adjacent station was Salvator Rosa.

Sant'Agnello Maggiore, also called Sant'Aniello a Caponapoli or Santa Maria Intercede, is a church in the historical center of Naples, Italy. According to tradition, Agnello of Naples, now co-patron (compatrono) of the city of Naples, is buried in this church. Other traditions hold he is buried in the Cathedral of Lucca. The church was bombed in 1943 and left as a ruin until recent renovations have allowed its reopening to the public.

Teatro Bellini is a private theatre and opera located in the centre of Naples, across the street from the Academy of Fine Arts of Naples on Via Conte di Ruvo. The house is named after the Sicilian-born composer Vincenzo Bellini, who is best known for his operas and who spent some time in the 1820s studying music in the city. In addition, there in an opera house name after him, the Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania, Sicily, his birthplace.

The Accademia Pontaniana was the first academy in the modern sense, as a learned society for scholars and humanists and guided by a formal statute. Patronized by Alfonso V of Aragon, it was founded by the poet Antonio Beccadelli in Naples during the revival of classical learning and later led by Giovanni Pontano who gave it a more official character to the meetings.