DESCRIPTION
The Civic Archaeological Museum “A. Vernarecci” in Fossombrone is housed in the rooms of the High Court, the Ducal Palace of Fossombrone. In particular it occupies two rooms of the Renaissance Theatre, incorporated in the Palace: the Roman room back wall is decorated with a sixteenth century fresco that was the scenic backdrop of the theater itself and still represents an unicum.
The first room of the museum is dedicated to temporary exhibitions and the setting changes periodically. There is currently an exhibition, “Ancient frivolities”, about jewelery and objects connected to body care in antiquity. This jewelry is in gold and bronze, rings, brooches in bone, bracelets, brooches etc.
The second and larger room instead collects Roman finds from the city and territory of Forum Sempronii. You can admire numerous inscriptions with burial nature, dedications to emperors, inscriptions placed in memory of monuments erections and celebration of eminent personalities. Numerous sculptures were found, among which the portraits of Hadrian, Caligula and Helena, mother of Constantine, the stele of Orfius speculator and pads with the tale of knights and maidens. There is also preserved the grand mosaic of the Abduction of Europa and the fresco of exotic animals, from the homonymous domus that can be visited in the archaeological park.
The section devoted to everyday objects is particularly rich, with coins, terracotta vases, clay and bronze figures, weights for loom and balance, lamps in terracotta and bronze, hair pins, etc. The jars, part of a deposit of about 150 elements found all together in a drainage pit in 1970 are very interesting too: some still preserve the graffiti with the indication of the content and the manufacturer’s stamps.
Within the Fossombrone archaeological museum you can admire many other artifacts of all kinds, which bear witness the richness and vibrancy of this medium-sized provincial towns.
Oscar Mei – Laura Invernizz
