Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Formia e Tomba di Cicerone

The Museum of Formia boasts, even through multiple transformations, a long tradition in the city's history. The thirties of the twentieth century dates back the creation of a first civic Antiquarium with the aim of gathering the materials returned by occasional excavations in the territory and who survived the subsequent dispersion or not considered significant for the large state-owned collections. After the severe war damage that hit the structure, it was necessary to wait until 1968 for the establishment of a new small Antiquarian on the ground floor of City Hall, composed of a single room, which soon closed to the public for management difficulties, it turned to only made accessible in the next decade when it was expanded with two additional rooms. The current headquarters, inaugurated in 1997, is located in some areas of the south wing of City Hall that were the subject of a radical renovation and construction responding to the modern principles of the use and safety of goods. In this circumstance we are back in Formia also some valuable works found in the Forum (today Mattej Square) in several stages between 1920 and 1970, so that the nucleus of sculptures, now reunited, it offers to the attention of the scholars and visitors.

The tour begins already outside the museum, where nine pedestals of statues are lined bearing dedications honorary that, for the typological and epigraphic characteristics, can be dated in the second century. A.D.

Inside, after the hall which houses exhibits related to the communications network and the shops, next room is devoted to the sculptures coming from the city and, in particular Forum, a large building identified as the "basilica." Subjects feature characters both male and female, the latter nudity or who are judges, for the most part dating in the Augustan and Julio-Claudian.

There are also interesting examples of paintings and stucco decorations, also newly discovered, which decorated the walls of public buildings or houses and opulent villas of otium.

A first inner aisle instead features marble representations of ideal subjects related to the world of myth and gods (Leda and the Swan, Mars, satyrs etc.) who performed a prevalent ornamental function within residential buildings and gardens, while a second gallery displays artifacts related to the funeral sphere (memorial stones, inscriptions, and statues) as well as architectural elements, especially the capitals, typically found outside the ancient contexts.

The Museum can be connected the visit of the SO-CALLED Tomb of Cicero, impressive funerary monument located in an area corresponding to the ancient burial garden, which is located along the suburban stretch of the Appian Way at 139 km.