ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM, Secret Cabinet – First Floor - Ai Voice

Now you’re entering one of the museum’s most intriguing sections: the Secret Cabinet.
Here you’ll find over two hundred artifacts, mostly from Pompeii and Herculaneum—depictions that, for centuries, were considered far too scandalous to be displayed in public.

The story behind these objects is fascinating.
When they were first uncovered during the Bourbon excavations in the 18th century, the rulers and scholars of the time deemed them utterly incompatible with the morals of their age. Thus, a “museum within the museum” was born: a locked room accessible only to scholars or men of a certain social and cultural standing. Women and young people were, of course, strictly excluded.
It wasn’t until the year 2000 that the collection was finally opened to the public, accompanied by modern explanations and historical context.

So, what will you see in these rooms? Not merely erotic imagery in the modern sense, but rather evidence of a completely different mindset—one in which what may appear excessive to us today originally symbolized good fortune, fertility, and prosperity.

You’ll discover, for example, that in Pompeian gardens there once stood phallic statues meant to guard fertility and abundance; that bronze tintinnabula—small bells shaped like male genitals—were hung at the entrances of shops, their gentle tinkling believed to ward off bad luck; and that lupanaria, or houses of pleasure, were adorned with small erotic paintings that served as genuine illustrated “menus” of the services offered....