The National Museum of Rome, which possesses one of the world’s most important archaeological collections, is housed in three different facilities: the Baths of Diocletian, which include the Octagonal Hall, the Palazzo Massimo, and the Palazzo Altemps.The complex restructuring and renovation effort is partially completed, but work is still under way. For this reason, only a portion of the Museum’s exhibitions can currently be visited.
The historic headquarters of the Museum is the Baths complex built by Diocletian between the last years of the third century A.D. (the dedicatory inscription dated 306 A.D. is conserved in a fragmentary state in the Museum).
The building of the Baths, the largest in the ancient world, included many rooms besides the traditional calidarium, tepidarium and frigidarium-which were designed to hold 3,000 people at the same time. Ther was a natatio or frigidarium for swimmers (large open air swimming pool) and various other rooms, meeting rooms, libraries, nympheums, dressing rooms, concert rooms and rooms for physical exercises etc.
