The Quirinale Palace’s archaeological collection, as it stands today, is the result of complex historical developments that started with the collection created by Cardinal Ippolito d'Este in 1550, until the 19th Century when the collection, much impoverished compared to the original, was consolidated into a prevalently statuary collection.
Today in the Quirinale Palace but mostly in its gardens visitors can see numerous idealised statues of deities and Apollonian and mythical figures in Roman togas, as well as original and copies of busts testifying to the tendency of recovering all things ancient.
Among the collection of statues, special notice should be taken of: a female figure of Ceres, which once belonged to the collection of the d’Este family, Apollo the athlete, a formally perfect reproduction from the Greek original, a colossal statue portraying Alexander the Great, two female statues inspired to the Goddess Fortuna and another female statue called Igea, probably crafted in Greece.
Equally important from a historical and documentary point of view, especially in consideration of their rarity, are two alabaster urns from the collection of the d’Este family in Modena.