Museo archeologico nazionale di Paestum

Behind the temples, in a rationalist building shaped like a classical cella, Paestum keeps its most fragile treasures under glass: the dive of a Greek tomb-painter, Lucanian funeral canvases, the metopes of a vanished sanctuary on the Sele.

Why it matters

Paint rarely survives two and a half millennia, which is what makes this museum exceptional rather than merely rich. The five painted slabs of the Tomb of the Diver preserve the only Greek tomb of the fifth century BC known to carry figurated painting, and its galleries of Lucanian slabs form one of the largest bodies of classical painting anywhere. Opened in 1952, the museum was designed in the 1930s by architect Marcello De Vita at the request of superintendent Amedeo Maiuri with a single purpose: to house the sculpted metopes pulled from the sanctuary of Hera at the river Sele. Their placement on the exterior of the temple-like "Cella" hall still explains the building before you step inside.

What to notice

Give the Tomb of the Diver time. The four side slabs show a symposium — reclining drinkers, flutes, wreaths — while the lid carries the dive itself, a youth arcing into blue water, read since its discovery as a metaphor for the passage from life to death. The tomb, made around 480–470 BC, came to light in 1968 when archaeologist Mario Napoli excavated a small cemetery at Tempa del Prete; among the grave goods were an Attic lekythos and a lyre with a tortoise-shell soundbox. In the metope galleries, look for the labours of Heracles carved from local stone about 570–560 BC. Upstairs, the bronze Marsia — the satyr found in the Roman forum — and a case of repatriated slabs seized in the United States in 2022 and returned in 2023 reward a second loop. Since October 2023 the whole display has followed a renewed layout; the basement even opens the storerooms, with some 1,350 square metres of deposits visitable on guided thematic tours.

Context and history

The museum grew with its discoveries. A first extension followed in 1959 for the finds of the Sele sanctuary; a second, from 1968, added the painted tombs and the hall built around the Diver. In 1972 the museum hung "Tempi prospettici" by Carlo Alfano, the first contemporary-art installation inside an Italian archaeological museum — a tradition the park keeps up across its sites. An upper floor for Roman Paestum opened in 1999, and renovation campaigns in 2019 and 2023 produced the completely redesigned exhibition visible today. The second floor closes the circle with Grand Tour material, including a 1778 volume of Piranesi engravings that helped fix the temples in the European imagination.