ANOTHER PAESTUM AND ANOTHER VELIA
Visiting the Archaeological Park of Paestum and Velia becomes an increasingly dynamic and engaging experience with the new thematic itineraries, organized by the Park staff in charge of use.

Every Friday in Paestum and every Saturday in Velia, from 7 April to 30 September 2023, it will be possible to enrich your visit with insights ranging from architecture to religion, from philosophy to the economy and the daily life of Paestum and Velia. The visits are intended to show the thousand faces of the two cities, enhancing their peculiarities and weaving a narrative that from ancient times reaches our contemporaneity.

Thematic itineraries are a unique opportunity to experience the Park in a different way and explore another Paestum and another Velia.

Discover the thematic itineraries and the calendar:
https://museopaestum.cultura.gov.it/al-via-nuovi-percorsi-tematici-al-parco-archeologico-di-paestum-e-velia/

THEMATIC ROUTES "ANOTHER PAESTUM"

THE GARDEN OF THE METOPES
Thanks to a recent restoration, a collection of sculpted metopes from the Doric-Corinthian temple of Mens Bona, located near the Roman forum and whose remains on the high podium were already visible to the first travelers on the Grand Tour, has been formed in the garden of the Museum The metopes depict fast-moving armed characters, but on one of them a mysterious girl escapes by fluttering a veil.

THE SANCTUARIES OF PAESTUM
As in many other Greek sites, also in Paestum the goddess Athena was venerated at the highest point of the city, an artificial hill created specifically at the time of the foundation of the colony, when the spaces for men and those for the gods were defined. The temple of Athena, the smallest of the three Doric buildings of Paestum, immediately strikes visitors for its position and the particularity of its architecture.

ARCHITECTURE WITHOUT BARRIERS
With its two large sacred buildings among the best preserved in the Greek world, the temple of Neptune and the c.d. Basilica, the southern sanctuary of Paestum is a concentration of Doric architecture. The new accessible route allows everyone to experience the unique experience of crossing the threshold of the so-called Basilica, monumental urban temple from the Archaic period (ca. 560 BC) dedicated to the goddess Hera.

PAESTUM CERAMICS
For a long time the inhabitants of Paestum imported from Greece the famous black-figure and red-figure vases of Corinthian and Athenian production. Starting from the fourth century. BC, perhaps thanks to the migration of artists and craftsmen, the shops of Paestum began to produce splendid decorated ceramics, characterized by an unmistakable style that merged the myth with scenes of daily life and irresistible comic caricatures. These are vases, some of which are signed, that archaeologists would have found in the kits of painted tombs.

THE IMPERIAL BUILDING OF HOUSE COBELLIS
Public building, complex of particular importance, the discovery of which has considerably expanded the framework of knowledge on the Roman phase of the city of Velia. Partially incorporated in a modern farmhouse from which it takes its name, the structure is characterized by various construction phases that are difficult to understand without an adequate explanation. Its chronological span of life and use begins with the first imperial age and then concludes towards the end of the third century. A.D., when it becomes a quarry of re-used material.

THE PORTRAITS OF VELIA
The portraits of Velia are kept inside the Church of Santa Maria di Portosalvo, on the acropolis. Rebuilt in the 19th century. on the remains of a previous building dedicated to the Virgin, the Church now houses finds belonging to the Hellenistic and Roman ages. The itinerary focuses mainly on the sculptures from Insula II, with a strongly celebratory and identifying character, which can be dated to a period between the Augustan age and the first century. A.D.

FROM THE ACROPOLIS OF VELIA
The acropolis is the most evocative place in the Archaeological Park of Velia. Clot point of the city in all its historical phases, from the foundation of the Magna Graecia colony up to the modern age. The presence of the sacred here is tangible and joins the defensive needs of the medieval phases and the residential ones of the modern and contemporary age. From the acropolis the view extends beyond Velia to that territory we call Cilento.