The Drugstore Museum: One of Rome's Underground Secrets

Want to see Ancient Rome without the crowds or the fees? There are wonderfully preserved 1st-century tombs and funerary relics, also well-curated and explained, within a kilometer* of Stazione di Roma Trastevere.

Above, a large family tomb, with frescoes and mosaics.

If you know RST, you can imagine we were intrigued by the name and the off-the-beaten-track location, near where we had scootered many times and couldn't envision an archeological site.

The name: The building, built in 1967, was occupied for many years by what some say was the first drugstore in Italy. In the 1980s the necropolis was discovered and the decision was made not to interfere with it, but simply to integrate some of it into the drugstore. (Wish we had seen it then too!) With the drugstore bankrupt by the 1990s, the necropolis remained inaccessible and untouched (there are advantages to lack of development) until the city and state were convinced in 2005 to take over the site. It took until 2020 for the museum to get to full use, and since then it has been closed now and then (for months at a time) - who knows why. We didn't write about it after we saw it in 2023 because we could not be assured it was open. Now it appears it is, with good programming as well.

A selection of amphorae. Someone complained about the colored lighting.
I rather liked it.

There are frescoes, mosaics, monuments. All one could ask for in digestible pieces.

In a post-modern approach, the bars and struts holding up the building above the site are highly visible, and the spaces for presentations and colloquies sponsored by the museum are not separated from the museum itself. All good design decisions, imo.

The multiple levels and explanatory panels are beautifully done.

I may not know what "syncretism" is,
but I appreciate this explanation, and the 
lovely statuette below.

Panels are in Italian and English,
and are both general and specific.

Many years ago Ingrid Rowland told us about a 

columbarium in a grocery (we thought) store in the 

Trastevere area north of the station. We never

found it. Maybe it was this columbarium,

now in the Drugstore Museum.

And there's more. The site here is part of a vast necropolis that existed outside the walls, near the Tevere, stretching out from Trastevere along what was the via Campana (the oldest road on the right bank of the Tiber, and now mostly absorbed by via Portuense). The city/state have identified several other sites, and have done some excavations nearby, forming what they call the "Portuense Necropolis Circuit"--stay tuned for our next trip out that way. Bottom line: we were wowed by this small, but nicely curated "Drugstore Museum" (yes that's the name in Italian).

Via Portuense 317 (set back from the street along a concrete wall - not easily visible - see red circle in photo below). Opening hours are given as 10 a.m. - 7 p.m. daily. But I wouldn't count on that. Here's a website that has other links that do not function. There's also a telephone (landline) - you might try that. Or just go out there and if it's not open, peek in the moto shop next door, or have a coffee nearby. The Museum is only about 1 km from the Stazione, but Google Maps will take you on a 3-4 km route to avoid your endangering yourself on the crossroads between the Stazione and the Museum. (another photo below of crossroads underpasses. We'd take the 1 km route, but that's us.

location circled - hardly eye-catching!

The crossroads and underpass (under the tracks to/from Stazione di Roma Trastevere;
 our trusty Honda in the foreground.

Dianne