Secret Museum, Naples

{{short description|Collection of sexually explicit finds from Pompeii}}

{{About|the collection in Naples|the collection in the British Museum|Secretum (British Museum)|the cartoon|Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum{{!}}Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum}}

File:MANNapoli Secret Cabinet entrance Italy.jpg

The Secret Museum or Secret Cabinet ({{langx|it|Gabinetto Segreto}}) in Naples is 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.

History

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[http://museoarcheologiconazionale.campaniabeniculturali.it/glossario/ploneglossarydefinition.2008-06-09.8351409625/ Gabinetto Segreto] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110411143549/http://museoarcheologiconazionale.campaniabeniculturali.it/glossario/ploneglossarydefinition.2008-06-09.8351409625/|date=April 11, 2011}} they were locked away in a Secret Museum. The doorway was bricked up in 1849.Laurentino García y García, Luciana Jacobelli, Louis Barré, Museo Segreto. With a Facsimile edition of Herculanum et Pompéi. Recueil général des peintures, bronzes, mosaïques... (1877) (2001) Pompeii: Marius Edizioni [http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2003/2003-07-38.html On-line Bryn Mawr Classical Review] 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.{{efn|For Roman views of sexuality, see Paul Veyne, "Pleasures and excesses" in A History of Private Life: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium, Philippe Ariès and Georges Duby, eds. (Harvard University Press) 1987: 183–207.}} Ideas about obscenity developed from the 18th century to the present day into a modern concept of pornography.{{cite book |last1=Kendrick |first1=Walter |url=https://archive.org/details/secretmuseumporn00kend/page/1/mode/2up |title=The Secret Museum |date=1987 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=0-520-20729-7 |edition=First |location=Berkeley and Los Angeles |pages=1–9 |url-access=registration}}

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.{{sfn|Hare|Famin|2003|loc=Introduction}} 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.

Gallery

Ermafrodito, affresco Romano di Ercolano (1–50 d.C., Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli) - 02.jpg|Hermaphroditus. Wall painting from Herculaneum. 1 CE – 50 CE

Coll. borgia, bronzetto con scena erotica sodomitica, 27715.JPG|Sculpture depicting sex

Cerámica Gabinetto segreto Nápoles.JPG|Anal sex between two males. Etruscan amphora. 5th century BCE

Napoli, museo archeologico (8105426048).jpg|Marble statue of Satyr and Nymph. From Pollena Trocchia.

Fragment of wall painting with erotic scene, from Pompeii, Naples National Archaeological Museum (17297820526).jpg|Sexual scene from Pompeii in the Secret Museum

Wall painting - love making - Pompeii - Napoli MAN 27697.jpg|Sexual scene from Pompeii in the Secret Museum

Erotic scene Pompeii MAN Napoli Inv27696.jpg|Sexual scene from Pompeii in the Secret Museum

Pan copulating with goat 1.JPG|Pan copulating with goat, 1st century BCE - 1st century CE