From 1st July, 2010, the National Roman Museum in Palazzo Massimo will reopen to the public the splendidly decorated rooms of the Roman villa of the Augustan period known as the Villa della Farnesina. The remains of the magnificent residence built along the banks of the Tiber, in the Transtiberim (XIV region of the Augustan reform), were unearthed during the walls construction in 1878/79. Archaeologists worked frantically, but the splendor of the decorations, considered the finest ever seen at the time, forced to a careful detachment of the frescoed walls and an accurate recovery of stucco, mosaics and some vaults. The Botanical Garden was the first refuge of these decorations, which were then transferred to the Baths of Diocletian, where in 1889 the National Roman Museum was established.

 

 

 

Palazzo Massimo, opened in 1998, has exhibited all these decorations to the audience after restoration work challenging, but new demands have made it necessary to renew the museum exhibition of the frescoed rooms for better conservation and for full public use.
On this occasion, the rooms' arrangement of the Villa della Farnesina has been redesigned with the aim of recreating, as far as possible, the original sequence of visual perception.

 

(source: http://www.beniculturali.it/mibac/export/MiBAC/sito-MiBAC/Contenuti/MibacUnif/Eventi/visualizza_asset.html_709581536.html

see also: http://roma.repubblica.it/cronaca/2010/06/30/news/affreschi_farnesina-5278061/)