The secret Museum of erotic art in Naples

Nowadays it is well known that the ancient Romans were very liberal views on sexuality. However, when in the middle of the XVIII century was discovered the ancient Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, buried under volcanic ash of Vesuvius, the public was not quite ready to detect also the juicy details of Roman society, namely, the craze for erotica.

In Pompeii flourished a large sex industry with dozens of brothels, the walls of which were covered with erotic murals. Artistic representations of sex often found on the walls of bedroom in rich private homes.

On the neck of the inhabitants of Pompeii wore phallic amulets to ward off evil spirits. And almost every of them kept a small collection of art objects to sexual subjects.

The farm was often used oil lamps and other household items phallic shape.

And the most outrageous discovery was a statue of the Greek God pan, half man, half goat — copulating with a goat.

Demonstration of all these explicit sexual materials caused a lot of confusion and awkwardness among the public of the eighteenth century, so obscene antiquity hastened to hide from the public eye, locked in a secret Cabinet.

Secret Cabinet or gabinetto segreto, originally located in the Herculaneum Museum at Portici. Access to it shall be made only by special written permission of the king. But as you know, prohibition only fueled interest, so images of the frescoes and copies of banned items was made inside the office and were distributed among the French elite.

After the transfer from Portici to national archaeological Museum of Naples collection briefly became available to the public without any restrictions. It lasted as long as king Francis I in 1819, has not caused the Museum visit, accompanied by his wife and daughter. Hurriedly shoved the family, angered the king immediately ordered to lock the collection in a special room where it will be able to see only men "of Mature age and good moral principles". Women and children to go there is strictly forbidden.

Over the next 200 years the secret Museum remained mostly closed, only a few times opening its doors for a short time. Even opened in the throes of the sexual revolution of the 60's, it has retained the old restrictions on the entrance. And only in 2000, the collection has finally become publicly available for both men and women.