National Museum of Oriental Art

The Museo Nazionale d'Arte Orientale Giuseppe Tucci on Via Merulana was Italy's central museum for the art of the Near and Far East. Founded in 1957 by the Tibetologist Giuseppe Tucci in the Palazzo Brancaccio, it showed his own collections of Tibetan Buddha sculpture, Persian ceramics, Chinese bronzes, Japanese sword guards and finds from his expeditions to Swat in Pakistan. The Via Merulana site closed in 2017; the holdings have since been incorporated into the Museo delle Civilta in the EUR district. The Palazzo Brancaccio now stands empty or is used only for occasional events. Visitors following the historic listing today see mainly the exterior facade on Via Merulana - the collection itself must be sought out at EUR.