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Among the collections just the one of the precious stones inherited by the Medici belongs almost entirely to the Farnese family. During the excavations at Caracalla baths and at the Palatino in Rom, Farnese collected many sculptures. The other collections in the museum are made of what found in the excavations and of what bought at the antiquarian marcket. The bronze statues, the frescoes, the bronze, iron, fired-clay, glass, bone, avory furnishings and the majority of golden and Silver objects come from Ercolano and Pompei.
The bronze collection is wonderful; many of them were found in the Villa dei Papiri in Pompei (as the "Apollo with the cithara" coming from the so called Citharist House).
The museum contains the best of furnishings (silver, precious crockery, vases, oil-lamps, braziers, candelabrums, bilances, surgical instruments) from the Pompei houses. From Pompei and Ercolano comes also the collection of mosaics. The mosaic of the Battle of Alessandro against Dario is beautiful, but also the most popular scenes as the one of the enchantress consultation and the concert of wandering musicians.
Also the painting collection from Pompei, Ercolano and Stabia is very important. The frescoes removal deprived excavations houses, their move to the museum garanteed a better preservation and defended them from the atmospheric agents. In the museum you may see funeral paintings or those paintings coming from private houses; they have heroic or mythologic subjects, they are landscapes or stll-lives.
They let us understand the customs of that times. Other objects come from the excavations in Cuma, Capua, Pozzuoli, Sorrento, Nola, Baia, Formia, Paestum and from the necropolis in Southern Italy. Meaningful the jewel collectiions, glazed fire-clays and avory; among them it is important the Farnese Cup.
As you may understand, the visit to the National Museum is necessary once in the city, as the Museum is a casket for the Mediterranean art and culture.