Centrale Montemartini Site Features

The Hall of the Machines

Two Franco Tosi diesel engines of 7,500 HP, installed in 1933, running the length of the room with classical sculpture ranged between them. This is the view the museum exists for, and it is best read from the walkway above rather than from the floor.

The Boiler Room

Built at the end of the 1930s to house a third turbine for a world's fair that never took place. It now holds much of the museum's finest sculpture, including the Statue of a Muse: Polymnia from the Horti Spei Veteris, the Statue of Marsyas from the Villa delle Vignacce, and the Seated Girl from the Gardens of Licinius.

The Portrait of Cleopatra

In the Hall of the Machines, among the copies of Greek originals — one of the collection's best-known heads, and a useful reminder that much of what survives of ancient sculpture is Roman copying rather than Greek carving.

The Column Hall

The ground-floor room that opens the visit, and the gentlest introduction: sculpture displayed conventionally before the building starts arguing with it.

The Train of Pius IX

The carriages of the papal train, given their own hall when the museum expanded in November 2016. Neither classical nor industrial, and the odd third thing in the building.

The plant itself

The turbines, boilers, switchgear and crane gantries were left in place rather than cleared, and they are labelled as exhibits in their own right. Read the room as well as the statues.