The Palazzo degli Studi is home to the Museo Archeologico Nazionale and was built in 1586. It was originally intended to house the university in the 1600s. Ferdinando IV set up the Farnese collection in 1777 and exhibited items found in Herculaneum and Pompei. Other things found at excavations from all over southern Italy were added making it the most important museums of ancient art in southern Italy. Paintings from towns which were buried by a volcanic eruption dating from the 1st Century BC to the 1st Century AD are another of the museum’s attractions.
