Crypta Balbi Museum In Rome, Italy Editorial Image

Pillar on the North side of the colonnaded courtyard in the Crypta Balbi Roman National Museum in Rome, Italy. In Roman times, the area of the museum was occupied by a large colonnaded courtyard annexed to the theater of Balbus that was erected in 13 BC, the so called Crypta Balbi. The Crypta Balbi Museum is housed in a part of the Conservatory of Santa Caterina dei Funari`s Convent, a complex which includes two houses of medieval origin on Via Botteghe Oscure and the `Barberini dormitory` on Via Caetani. The archaeological excavation can be considered one of the most successful projects of urban archeology started in the 1980s to understand the various building phases of the area and the continuity of its life from Roman times to the present. In Roman times, the area was occupied by a large colonnaded courtyard annexed to the theater of Balbus that was erected in 13 BC and later transformed and adapted in latrine, cistern, dump, during the Medieval and the Renaissance in establishment of the Monastery of Santa Maria Domine Rose, merchants` houses and later the Conservatory of Santa Caterina dei Funari built in the sixteenth century.