Capitoline Museums

Legendary founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, with their wolf foster mother, bronze sculpture; in the Capitoline Museums, Rome. The wolf traditionally has been identified as Etruscan, c. 500–480 bc, though some early 21st-century research suggests medieval origins. The twins date from the 16th century.

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Capitoline Museums, complex of art galleries on the Capitoline Hill in Rome. The collection was initially founded in 1471 by Pope Sixtus IV, who donated statuary recovered from ancient ruins. It was augmented by gifts from later popes and, after 1870, by acquisitions from archaeological sites on city property. The museum, opened to the public in 1734, occupies portions of the palaces that frame the Piazza del Campidoglio, a historic square designed by Michelangelo in the 16th century. (The plans were not fully realized until after his death.) The collection is housed mainly in the Palazzo Nuovo and the Palazzo dei Conservatori, which face one another across the square. It features such well-known Roman works as the bronze she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome; the Capitoline Venus; and the Dying Gaul.