Western Romania: Artifacts from Italian museums in Timișoara exhibition on Pompeii

More than 100 items, ranging from frescoes and paintings to sculptures, photographs, and other rare artifacts from Italian museums, will go on display in Timișoara for an exhibition looking at the city of Pompeii.

Titled The Fragility of the Eternal. From Pompeii to the Grand Tour to Today, the exhibition will be open from November 28 to March 29, 2026, at the National Museum of Art in Timișoara.

The exhibition, the result of a collaboration with Italy’s Civita Mostre e Musei, explores “the impact of cataclysms on civilizations, from the ancient tragedy of Pompeii to how this event inspired European art and culture, from the Grand Tour to contemporary times.”

The exhibition reconstructs the cultural life of a prosperous, cosmopolitan, and dynamic Roman city, caught in the moment of the cataclysm that temporarily halted its destiny, but paradoxically preserved it for eternity as a cultural effigy and as an archetype of survival through art, a presentation of the show explains.

The items on display come from Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli; Certosa e Museo di San Martino – Naples; Museo Nazionale della Ceramica Duca di Martina in Villa Floridiana – Naples, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea – Rome; Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte – Naples; Galleria Lia Rumma Milano – Naples, and Museo Nazionale di Castel Sant’Angelo – Rome.

The exhibition will also offer an immersive narrative experience, guided by the voice of a virtual character inspired by an archaeological inscription, discovered on a commemorative altar that attests to the presence in Dacia of a survivor of the eruption of Vesuvius, the organizers said.

Archaeologist Massimo Osanna, director general of Museums at Italy’s Ministry of Culture, is the scientific curator, while Filip A. Petcu, the manager of the National Museum of Art Timișoara, is the general curator.

The exhibition anticipates the program Romania-Italy Cultural Year 2026, which will begin on December 1 in Rome.

(Illustration: Muzeul Național de Artă Timișoara)

simona@romania-insider.com