In 1471,  as the Renaissance dawned in Rome, Pope Sixtus IV founded the Capitoline Museums on the hill from which the Roman god Jupiter had once surveyed his kingdom.  Donating ancient bronze sculptures from the Papal collection to the people of Rome, Sixtus decreed that the Roman masterpieces should be placed on the Capitoline Hill, in front existing medieval buildings.  In doing so, the Pope founded the world's first public museum, and for over 500 years travelers and tourists have reverently paid homage to the glorious collection. Now the most esteemed and the oldest public museum in the world has made a dramatic jump into the twenty-first century.  In late December 2005, a new glass pavilion and flanking remodeled sculpture galleries were inaugurated.   This brilliant new addition - adding some 3000 square meters of exhibition space - vaults the Captioline Museums into the modern world, even as it houses ancient artifacts that evoke Rome's past glory.

The new glass pavilion was designed by architect Carlo Aymonino to house the Capitoline collections of ancient bronzes, and at its center an over-lifesize bronze equestrian statue of the second-century emperor, Marcus Aurelius, rides in triumphant grandeur!  Though the statue's location in antiquity is unknown, he was a guest of the papacy at the church of Saint John Lateran during the Middle Ages. His reign on the Capitoline Hill began at the request of Pope Paul III, who, in the 1530s, asked Michelangelo to make the statue the centerpiece of the design for Piazza del Campidoglio.  In 1989, the sculpture was removed from the piazza in order to protect it from the elements, and now the City of Rome has given the emperor his own room with a view.   Benevolently, the bronze emperor - the only complete bronze equestrian statue to survive from antiquity - shares his new pavilion with two other masterpieces of ancient sculpture, the god Hercules and the emperor Constantine.  Appropriately, the Marcus Aurelius also stands adjacent to the newly excavated remains of ancient Rome's most important and largest temple, dedicated to Jupiter Optimus Maximus   Begun by the Roman king Tarquinius Superbus,, the first temple on the site is said to have been inaugurated in 509 BC by the consuls of Republican Rome. In the ancient period, the temple was destroyed four

times, and rebuilt each time, becoming grander and more elaborately decorated with every rebuilding.  Though the temple was used as a quarry for building materials in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the excavated remains visible in the new Capitoline pavilion include the temple's massive perimeter wall and foundation. Remodeled galleries flanking the new pavilion allow never-before-seen artifacts to be displayed next to well-known favorites.  These elegant galleries house the luxurious trappings that once decorated the garden estates of ancient Rome's glitterati, like Maecenus, advisor and friend of the Emperor Augustus.   Among them are sumptuous sculptures, like the sublime Esquiline Venus; Roman jewelry studded with precious stones; and a magnificent alabaster floor recovered from an imperial residence on the edge of the ancient city.   The ancient artifacts showcased in the new Capitoline galleries show no signs of the wear and tear often associated with time travel.  It seems they've weathered the transition from past to present much better than most of us manage trips through time zones as we jet across the Atlantic.  The grace with which gods and emperors have adapted to their new and ultra-modern environment is a reminder that in Rome, past and present are often one and the same.