The magnificent gilded bronze heads that belonged to the roman ships of Nemi are now in the National Roman Museum of Palazzo Massimo at Rome. There are wild beasts, a Medusa, hands, and many other precious furnishings.

The recovered wrecks allowed a better understanding of the Roman naval construction techniques. The ships were made of pine, fir and oak wood and were covered with a woolen fabric soaked in pitch that made them waterproof; lead sheets were nailed to them. Also the anchors were made of wood, with lead weights.

Lake Nemi is located southeast of Rome in the Colli Albani area. It was the site of an ancient pre-Roman sanctuary, later dedicated to the goddess Diana Aricina or Diana Nemorensis.
During the excavation, two ships were found: one was the emperor Caligula's ship-palace, the other must have been a ceremonial ship dedicated to the cult of the goddess Diana, to whom the emperor was devoted.

Since the fifteenth century it was known that in the lake there were the wrecks of some Roman ships, because every now and then the fishermen found precious objects entangled in the nets.
On behalf of Cardinal Prospero Colonna, the great Renaissance architect Leon Battista Alberti tried to recover the wrecks with a system of floating platforms and the help of skilled Genoese swimmers. The project failed, but some fistulas with the name of Caligula were found which allowed the ships to be attributed to him.

At the end of the nineteenth century the divers reached the wreck recovering a rudder with a beautiful lion's head in gilded bronze.
In 1927, after long discussions on how to recover the ships, the project of lifting them with balloons was discarded: too risky. It was decided to lower the level of the lake by more than twenty meters, discharging the waters through the ancient emissary (which can still be visited).

Guido Ucelli took charge of the works and set up an Industrial Committee for the recovery of the ships, which supplied the turbines and made an agreement with the Government and the Civil Engineers of Rome for the works. On 20 October 1928 Mussolini started emptying the lake.

At the end of the Second World War, unfortunately, the ships were destroyed by fire due to an Allied bombing. The bronzes were saved because they had been taken to Rome at the start of the war.