Museo Nazionale Romano - Crypta Balbi

The site is the porticoed courtyard behind the theatre that Lucius Cornelius Balbus built and dedicated in 13 BC, together with everything that built up over it: the Roman crypta and the south side of the Porticus Minucia, the early-medieval church and convent of Santa Maria Domine Rose, the medieval houses of via dei Delfini, a Renaissance convent of Santa Caterina with its conservatorio, and an eighteenth-century Polish hospice. About 7,000 square metres was acquired by the State in 1981. Roma Capitale describes a display on three levels: the archaeology of the Balbus complex and the neighbouring Porticus on the ground floor, the buildings raised against the Crypta after the fire of 80 AD and abandoned in the seventh century on the first, and the changes from late antiquity to the Middle Ages on the second. The museum rooms are in the seventeenth-century dormitory of the convent of Santa Caterina. The theatre itself was built in stone with the spoils of Balbus's victory over the Garamantes and dedicated in 13 BC; it burnt under Titus, probably in 79, and was restored, probably by Domitian. It measured 95 metres in diameter and held 7,700 spectators. Medieval shops in its arcades gave via delle Botteghe Oscure its name, and the rope-makers who gave via dei Funari its name twisted their rope in the 60-metre porticoed courtyard.