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Pompeii’s erotic art was locked away for 180 years

Not censored by the Romans. Censored by the people who dug it up.

Pompeii’s erotic art was locked away for 180 years

The excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum turned up erotic frescoes, mosaics, lamps and household objects in ordinary rooms of ordinary houses — the material was not hidden and not shameful to the people who lived with it. The excavators found this intolerable.

In 1819 the future Francis I of the Two Sicilies visited with his wife and daughter, and ordered the objects removed to a locked room in Naples. The Gabinetto Segreto was accessible only to “persons of mature age and known morals”, meaning gentlemen with permission. It was bricked up entirely in 1849, and did not open to the general public until 2000.

Sources

Kendrick, The Secret Museum (1987); Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli

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