Along via Ostiense, on the left bank of the Tiber opposite the former Mercati Generali, the Centrale Montemartini is a perfect example of the conversion of an industrial archaeology building into a museum. What started out as the first public electricity production plant, named after Giovanni Montemartini, is now the second exhibition centre of the Capitoline Museums and houses a considerable part of the sculptures of classical antiquity brought to light during excavations carried out in Rome in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The exhibition reconstructs the ancient monumental complexes, retracing the development of the city from the Republican to the late Imperial age with particularly significant episodes that are often little known to the general public, as in the case of the huge mosaic with hunting scenes from Santa Bibiana.
The rooms of the power station, in particular the Engine Room with its precious Art Nouveau furnishings, still preserve turbines, diesel engines and the colossal steam boiler, in the midst of which the marbles of the ancient age shine.
In this museum, which embraces the monumental grandeur of ancient Rome and the more recent past of the first industrial environments, you will find masterpieces such as the cycle of statues that decorated the pediment of the temple of Apollo Sosianus, the colossal acrolith depicting the goddess Fortuna from Largo Argentina, and the pensive figure of the muse Polyhymnia.
