Rome's Tate Modern -- Centrale Montemartini

It's a beautiful day in central Italy and I'm done with a morning swim, puttering around online and find out that part of the famed Capitoline Museum is housed in a separate part of town in what used to be an old electric plant. What's a boy to do but hop on the train and go see it. So, the story goes, in short, that in 1912, the Montemartini power plant was built outside the walls south of the Ostiense station, an industrial area very few tourists ever see. It was Rome's first power station and through the early 1960's it generated a significant portion of the electricity for the city. After that it was decommissioned and abandoned. In the 1990's when the main section of the Capitoline complex was being renovated, the idea came to turn this power plant into an exhibition space. For those of you who have been to the Tate Modern in London, same idea, EXCEPT, here in Rome, they left the big machines and those are a stunning juxtaposition with the excavated artifacts of Republican and Rome of the Early Empire.

Entering off Via Ostiense, here's the facade of the former Montemartini Power Plant.

The first thing you see as you leave the entrance is this 5th Century BC statue of Aphrodite with a part of the power plant machinery as a backdrop.

As the home to pieces from early Rome, lower floor houses many of the smaller items. Here is the "Togaed Barbarini" (we studied it in Art History). It shows a male of status and wealth holding portraits of his father and grandfather. Only the wealthy class were able to make portraits of ancestors.

An younger portrait of Augustus, shown in a more serene and gentle pose of "classical beauty".

Augustus, as I have mentioned before, was a GREAT administrator. Here was the map of how he divided Rome into different regions, each of which was run by publicly elected ministers.

In each region, an "augustuslares" (as shown) was erected. Augustus Lares means the "Genius of Augustus"

Here's Augustus' right-hand man, and probable best friend, Marcus Agrippa.

With their many victories and incorporation of foreign lands into the Empire, luxuries, such as this fish mosaic, were part of the beauty and high life of living in Rome.

Going up one flight, one enters into the main machine room (diesel) of the Montemartini.

It's an AMAZING juxtaposition of the beauty of art from the Roman Empire and what is essentially industrial machinery as art itself.

In a second room, the backdrop is the old steam generator, which was turned into electricity.

A kore, wearing a peplos, with a control panel in the background.

After Augustus and Hadrian, my third favorite Roman Emperor is probably Caracalla, even though he wasn't a great one, I like his scowl.

It's the contrast of the white marble and the black machinery that is an amazing visual combination.