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Velletri Civic Museums: from the Sarcophagus of Hercules to the fossils of the Alban Hills
The 16th-century Town Hall (Palazzo Comunale) of Velletri houses two distinct and very different museums. The Oreste Nardini Archaeological Museum, opened in 1920 and named after the engineer who was its first director, displays about 400 artefacts dating from Protohistory to the Middle Ages. The Museum of Geopaleontology and Prehistory of the Alban Hills (Colli Albani) tells the story of the territory's origins, from volcanoes to fossils. Together with the Diocesan Museum, they form the Velletri Urban Museum System.
A masterpiece of Roman funerary art
Inside the Archaeological Museum is the Velletri Sarcophagus, also known as the “Sarcophagus of the Labours of Hercules”, dating from the 2nd century AD. It is considered a unicum in Roman art: the entire surface shows mythological scenes, with Hercules as the protagonist. In the same collection, there is also the Lastra dell'Orante (Slab of the Praying Figure), a Christian sepulchral slab from the 4th century AD featuring scenes from the Old and New Testament, and the Volscian Terracottas, terracotta slabs discovered in 1910 in the grounds of SS. Stimmate (Church of the Most Holy Stigmata).
The geological history of the territory
The Geopaleontology Museum is divided into five sections: Geology, Paleontology, Anthropology, Prehistory, and Protohistory. Exhibits include fossils, pottery, and environmental reconstructions.
