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Four museums in one are housed in the Università di Napoli Federico II. Rockhounds will love the Mineralogy and Geology Museum; the Anthropology Museum is fascinating; animal lovers will relate to the Zoology Museum; and the Palaeontology Museum has dinosaur exhibits.

Finds from this Roman town, now inside the town hall, consist of pottery, figurines and tools.

One of the world’s most important museums of ancient art houses some of the most famous statues from the Greco-Roman past, such as the Callipygean Venus that set standards of physical beauty that have endured through the ages. Other monumental marble works include the Farnese Hercules, but the collections also feature bronzes, mosaics, frescoes, carved semiprecious stone, glassware, Greek vases, Egyptian artifacts, and much more (see Museo Archeologico Nazionale).

The area’s archaeological museum contains a reassembled sacellum (shrine) featuring statues of several emperors. There’s also a reconstruction of a nymphaeum (fountain), the original of which still lies under 6 m (20 ft) of water. Its statues have been raised, however, and illustrate the story of how Ulysses and his men escaped from the Cyclops Polyphemus.

Housed in the 18th-century Villa Arbusto, exhibits here illustrate the history of ancient Ischia, from prehistoric to Roman times. Many of the most important objects date back to the 8th century BC, when Ischia was settled by Greeks from the island of Euboea. The most famous pots were found at a nearby necropolis; among these are a typical late geometric krater , decorated with a shipwreck scene.

This museum boasts finds from all over the peninsula, including pottery and weapons.

An insurpassable museum for the range and beauty of its Greco-Roman art, with important pieces unearthed in Rome and in towns around Vesuvius. The experience is a total immersion in the life of the ancients – their religious beliefs, sports, eating habits, and even their erotic peccadilloes (see Museo Archeologico Nazionale).

Among this museum’s beautiful treasures are ancient Greek tomb paintings that were only discovered on the site in 1968. Other finds include bronze vases, terracotta votive figures and various funerary furnishings (see Paestum).

The palace itself is an unusual example in Naples of the 15th-century Tuscan Renaissance style, and was donated to the city as a museum in the 19th century. Until 1943 it housed Prince Filangieri’s private collection of armour, majolica, coins, porcelain, Nativity figures, sculpture and paintings. Sadly, most of the original pieces were destroyed in World War II, but since then the exhibits have been restored and augmented. They include works by Luini and Ribera.