Museum: Secret Museum
The Secret Museum or Secret Cabinet (Gabinetto Segreto) of Naples is the collection of erotic art in Pompeii and Herculaneum, held in separate galleries in the National Archaeological Museum, Naples, the former Museo Borbonico.
Throughout ancient Pompeii and Herculaneum, erotic frescoes, depictions of the god Priapus, sexually explicit symbols and inscriptions, and even household items (such as phallic oil lamps) were found. Although the excavation of Pompeii was initially an Enlightenment project, once artifacts were classified through a new method of taxonomy, those deemed obscene and unsuitable for the general public were termed pornography and in 1821 they were locked away in a Secret Museum. The doorway was bricked up in 1849.
At Pompeii, locked metal cabinets were constructed over erotic frescos, which could be shown, for an additional fee, to gentlemen but not to ladies. This peep show was still in operation at Pompeii in the 1960s.The cabinet was only accessible to "people of mature age and respected morals", which in practice meant only educated men.
Re-opened, closed, re-opened again and then closed again for nearly 100 years, the secret room was briefly made accessible again at the end of the 1960s before being finally re-opened in 2000. Since 2005 the collection has been kept in a separate room in the Naples National Archaeological Museum.
