ROME — Anyone who thinks of a snake as something sinister should reconsider.

Throughout history, the snake has been a symbol of positive values: strength, wisdom, rebirth or reinvention (it sheds its skin) and, by extension, healing (medicine’s caduceus of intertwined snakes), seduction (Adam and Eve), sensuality and power, according to Jean-Christophe Babin, chief executive of Bulgari.

To illustrate the worthy attributes of the reptile — and perhaps repay it for providing decades of inspiration, Bulgari has mounted an extensive exhibition, called SerpentiForm, at the Museo di Roma in the 18th-century Palazzo Braschi through April 10.

After all, the jewelry house has used the snake in numerous ways for more than half a century, ever since the 1940s when Constantino and Mario Bulgari created the first spiraling Serpenti watch. Others followed, often gliding up the wrist thanks to flexible Tubogas links.

On bracelets with colorfully enameled scales and jeweled heads, gold evening bags etched with snakes, necklaces clasped with the clenched jaws of a snake’s head, the Serpenti style has slithered its way onto so many of the house’s creations that a snake just says Bulgari.

In a way, 2016 has become a special year of the snake at the luxury house. Bulgari is dedicating its main windows at Baselword, the giant trade show held in Switzerland this week, to the Serpenti style. It also plans to wrap several buildings in major world cities in, well, snake skins; is organizing special events; designing new Serpenti pieces; and planning some as-yet-unannounced surprises.

In Rome, Mr. Babin said, the exhibition is “the first time the symbol of the snake has been presented in all dimensions of art.”

Examples in categories such as sculpture and jewelry are displayed in more than 4,000 square feet — including, according to Lucia Boscaini, Bulgari’s brand and heritage curator, “27 art pieces; 50 photographs; 16 costumes from movies, theater and opera; 44 watches and pieces of jewelry from our heritage collection; and two new pieces of Serpenti jewelry as well as three pieces of jewelry from Pompeii.”

Three snake bracelets that date to the city ruined by Vesuvius are the oldest items. Then, the display fast-forwards to the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.

“It’s not meant to be historical,” Ms. Boscaini said. For example, while Cleopatra may have had a snake on her headdress as a symbol of power, she is represented in the exhibition by four costumes from Elizabeth Taylor’s 1963 film epic.

Work by the French artist Niki de Saint Phalle got special attention. “She had a bad childhood,” Ms. Boscaini said, “and later used the snake to show her rebirth from those sad times.” Seven of the artist’s pieces inspired by the serpent are on view, as well as a dress by the Italian designer Enrico Coveri that was inspired by her work.

The serpent’s influence is presented thematically, beginning with performance and a mannequin dressed in a snake-strewn costume once used for Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Nabucco,” one arm extended toward the first gallery to guide visitors. (The mannequin also was a clever solution to a challenge: The entrance room is frescoed and the walls could not be touched.)

Among the artists represented in the exhibition: Paul Klee, Alexander Calder, Piero d’Orazio and Fornasetti. There also are a pair of doors painted with snakes by Keith Haring; Richard Avedon’s photograph of Brooke Shields entwined with a snake, and Robert Mapplethorpe’s self-portrait as “Snakeman.”

“After you go through painting and sculpture and fashion and photography, the show ends with the ultimate art category” — Bulgari jewelry, Mr. Babin said.

Two new Serpenti jewels, both necklaces held together by a snake’s clenched jaws, were made for the exhibition. One includes “diamonds and 75 carats of emeralds perfectly matching in color,” he said. “That’s the audacity, the boldness of Bulgari.”

Lucia Silvestri, the house’s creative director and designer of the new necklaces, noted that the second one features an unusual material: the aptly named snakewood, from South America.

“I had wanted to work with wood,” she said. “I researched and discovered snakewood. Polished, it has the look of scales, and it is beautiful set in rose gold. It’s easy to wear, morning to night, with jeans and a white blouse or a black dress.”

Ms. Silvestri said more Serpenti necklaces in wood would be created this year, as would other jeweled models. There might be one in sapphires, or all diamonds, but don’t expect another one in emeralds. “It took years to collect enough emeralds that matched,” she said.

At Bulgari’s headquarters, on the Lungotevere Marzio in the city center, Mr. Babin invited a visitor to step out onto the terrace that wraps around his office. The view is sweeping, extending across and up the Tiber River, past the Castel Sant’Angelo and the dome of the Vatican. “It’s the best view in Rome,” Mr. Babin said.

The SerpentiForm exhibition has a tagline: 2,700 Years of Inspiration. But it doesn’t refer to the snake. “It refers to the founding of Rome as a city 2,700 years ago, and its 2,700 years of influence,” Mr. Babin explained, looking out on the city. “Without Rome it is difficult to explain Bulgari, which comes out of Roman art and architecture.”

And the inspiration is continuing. “Our employees, our designers, they go out at lunch, they walk the streets of Rome,” he said. “And then they come back here, inspired.”