National Archaeological Museum of Naples (MANN): tickets, hours and what to see

The National Archaeological Museum of Naples is where the beautiful things from Pompeii and Herculaneum end up. At the excavations you see the houses; here you see the mosaics, the frescoes, the statues and the objects those houses contained. If you go to Pompeii without stopping at the MANN, you see half the story.

The official ticket costs €20 according to the official site (museoarcheologiconapoli.it), the museum closes on Tuesdays and it is five minutes by metro from Napoli Centrale. This page tells you what to look at, how much time you need, and whether the official ticket, the partner ticket with audio app or a guided tour is the better deal. Partner prices checked regularly.

What to see at the MANN: the five things that make the ticket worth it

The museum is big, three floors in a late sixteenth-century palace that started life as a riding school. Do not try to see it all: choose. These are the sections that on their own justify the €20.

Mosaics from Pompeii and the Alexander Mosaic

First mezzanine floor. The floors of the House of the Faun are here, not at Pompeii, and the most famous piece is the Alexander Mosaic: the Battle of Issus in more than a million tesserae, with Alexander on the left and Darius fleeing on his chariot. In the same wing you find the “Cave canem”, the fish of the Mediterranean, the cat with the partridge and the theatre masks. This is the section to start from if you are short of time.

Secret Cabinet

Next to the mosaics. It gathers the erotic objects from Pompeii and Herculaneum that the Bourbons kept under lock and key: frescoes from the brothels, amulets, the Pan with the goat from the Villa of the Papyri. Small, it can be seen in twenty minutes. On free-entry days it stays closed, as do the Egyptian and Magna Graecia sections: if it matters to you, do not go on the first Sunday of the month.

Frescoes and objects of everyday life

Second floor. The painted walls of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae were detached in the eighteenth century and brought here: Flora, Medea, the portrait of the baker Terentius Neo with his wife, the Sappho with her stylus. Alongside, the section on everyday life: pots, scales, surgical instruments, carbonised bread. It is the part children cope with best.

Farnese Bull and Farnese Hercules

Ground floor, Farnese collection. The Farnese Bull is the largest marble group to have come down from antiquity, carved from a single block and found at the Baths of Caracalla in Rome. The Farnese Hercules, a little further on, is the weary hero leaning on his club. These are the statues the Bourbons inherited from the Farnese of Parma and brought to Naples in the eighteenth century.

Be warned: until further notice the Farnese sculpture galleries are partly closed while the lighting is redone. The museum only guarantees rooms 1–7 and 25–29, and according to the official map the Farnese Bull is in room 16 and the Hercules in room 11, outside the guaranteed ones: ask at the ticket office whether they are on view before you go in. The Farnese Gems, with the Farnese Cup, open only on Saturdays and Sundays.

Villa of the Papyri and the Salone della Meridiana

The bronzes from the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, the runners and the dancers, fill a section open every day from 10:00 to 18:20. The Salone della Meridiana, on the first floor, is the largest hall in the museum, with the meridian line of 1791 on the floor and the Farnese Atlas at the entrance.

Egyptian section and the model of Pompeii

The Egyptian collection, in the basement, is the second in Italy after the Museo Egizio in Turin: mummies, sarcophagi, the statue of the Lady of Naples. It is worth the half hour if you have time, but on free days it is closed. The model of Pompeii, on the first floor, is the 1:100 scale reproduction of the excavations made in the nineteenth century: five minutes in front of the case gives you the layout of the city that the park’s paper map never manages to explain.

Why the treasures of Pompeii are at the MANN and not at Pompeii

The Bourbon excavations of the eighteenth century were not a conservation effort: they were a hunt for objects for the royal collections. Frescoes stripped from the walls, mosaics lifted from the floors, bronzes and silver went first to the palace at Portici and then, from 1816, to this building, which Ferdinand IV had already chosen to bring together the Farnese collection inherited from his mother.

The result is that today at Pompeii you see mostly architecture, and in some houses copies, while the originals from the House of the Faun, the Villa of the Mysteries and the houses of Herculaneum are here. Anyone who visits the excavations without the museum sees the frames without the paintings. That is why guided tours combine the two places, and why this page advises you to do both even if you only have a single weekend.

How much time to allow and in what order

With two hours you can do the mosaics, the Secret Cabinet, the frescoes and a pass by the Farnese Bull, if the room is open. With three hours add the Villa of the Papyri and the Salone della Meridiana. With four you also see the Egyptian section, the second in Italy after Turin, and the model of Pompeii, useful for getting your bearings if you have not yet been to the excavations.

Suggested order: go straight up to the second floor for the frescoes, come down to the mosaics and the Secret Cabinet, and finish on the ground floor with the Farnese. Do the opposite of the crowd, which comes in and stops at the statues.

The best time is opening at 9:00 or after 16:00: the 11:00–15:00 band is when the groups concentrate. In summer the museum warns that some rooms may close temporarily between 12:30 and 16:00 because of the heat. Check the collections opening plan on the official site the day before: the Numismatics section, Prehistory on the upper floors and Magna Graecia have no guaranteed opening.

Tickets: official, partner or guided tour?

Official ticket, €20. Bought at the desk (closes at 18:30) or online on the museum’s website with no booking fee. There is no real queue at the entrance on normal days: “skip the line” at the MANN does not exist as a problem, except on the first Sunday of the month. Reduced to €2 for EU citizens aged 18–25, free under 18, €10 with the Campania Artecard once the free entries are used up.

Partner ticket, from €24. The tickets on GetYourGuide and Tiqets cost €4–6 more than the official one. What you pay for: an audio app or a digital guide, purchase in two minutes with the card you normally use, free cancellation until the day before. If you need none of that, buy the official one.

Guided tour, from €41.80. The Naples: Guided Tour of the National Archaeological Museum of Naples lasts two hours, small group, ticket included. It is worth it if you pair the museum with Pompeii or Herculaneum: the guide links the objects to the houses they come from, and in two hours you see the best without wandering aimlessly. At weekends book a few days ahead; the exact meeting point is on the voucher.

If you would rather have a guide all to yourself, the Naples: Historic Centre and National Archaeological Museum: Private Tour costs €285 per group for two hours and combines the museum with Spaccanapoli. For the comparison with the other walking tours go to /walking-private-tours/.

Is it worth it with the Campania Artecard?

The MANN is among the sites included in the Campania Artecard: with the 3-day card the first entries are free, after which you pay the special ticket at €10. If in three days you also do Pompeii and the Sansevero Chapel, the card pays for itself. The full calculation is at /artecard/.

Practical services: bags, photos, children, accessibility

• Cloakroom. Backpacks and hand luggage must be left in the free lockers at the entrance; suitcases larger than hand luggage are not accepted. If you are coming from the station with a trolley case, leave it at the hotel or at the left-luggage office at Garibaldi.
• Photos. Allowed without flash and without a tripod in the permanent collections. The Secret Cabinet and temporary exhibitions may have different rules, indicated at the entrance to the room.
• Children. The museum works well up to age ten if you split it in two: mosaics and everyday objects, a break at the courtyard café, then the model of Pompeii. Under 18s enter free. The museum’s free app on Google Arts & Culture has themed routes.
• Accessibility. The step-free entrance is the western gate, on your right as you leave the Museo metro station where the cars go in; visitors with a disability have priority access without queuing. The lifts, marked on the museum map, each serve a single wing: on the first floor, to change wing you go back down to the ground floor and change lift, on the second you cross through the Salone della Meridiana. For particular needs write to man-na.informazioni@cultura.gov.it.
• Bookshop and café. The bookshop is at the entrance, the café in the inner garden: handy for a mid-visit break without going out.

MANN and Pompeii: how to combine them

The right combination is excavations in the morning and museum in the late afternoon of the same day, or the day after. From Pompei Scavi the Circumvesuviana brings you back to Garibaldi in 35–40 minutes; from there Line 1 reaches Museo in five. By 16:30 you are inside with three hours ahead of you before closing at 19:30.

If you have just one day in Naples and have to choose between the MANN and Herculaneum, go to Herculaneum in the morning and the MANN in the afternoon: the site is smaller and in two hours you have seen it. How to organise the excavations from Naples is explained at /pompeii/ and /herculaneum/.

What is near the MANN

The museum is at the northern edge of the historic centre. Out of the main gate you have:

• Piazza Bellini and via Costantinopoli, a 5-minute walk: bars for a break, the Greek walls in the square.
• Sansevero Chapel and the Veiled Christ, a 12-minute walk down via Santa Maria di Costantinopoli: book your slot first, see /sansevero-veiled-christ/.
• Catacombs of San Gennaro, a 20-minute uphill walk towards Capodimonte, or a bus from piazza Museo: see /catacombs/.
• Galleria Principe di Napoli, opposite the museum, for a coffee under cover.
• Capodimonte Museum, bus 168 (Porta Piccola stop) or C63 (Porta Grande) from piazza Museo, according to the official sites of the two museums: the Caravaggios and the Farnese Titians, if after the ancient world you want something more recent.

In short: how to do the National Archaeological Museum of Naples

Metro Line 1 to Museo, official ticket at €20 at the desk or partner ticket at €24 with audio, two or three hours inside starting with the frescoes. Avoid Tuesdays, when it is closed, and the first Sunday of the month, when it is free but with the Secret Cabinet closed and queues. If you are coming from Pompeii, the MANN is the missing piece: book the guided tour if you want someone to explain the connection, otherwise the ticket and this page are all you need.