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After 20 years of restoration work, Pompeii's opulent House of Vettii offers glimpse into lives of former slaves

house of the vettii

Which doesn’t mean the Victorian-era archeologists weren’t still scandalized by what they found. According to an 1896 edition of The English Illustrated Magazine, a House of the Vettii painting “only suitable to that barbarous period of Europe’s history [was] very properly… covered over” before the dig continued. Overall the evidence furnished by the House of the Vettii offers key insights into domestic architecture and interior decoration in the last days of the city of Pompeii.

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The rooms laid out on the left of the entrance hall are decorated with mythological subjects, which are described below. “The House of the Vetti is like the history of Pompeii and actually of Roman society within one house,” Pompeii’s director, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, gushed as he showed off an area of the domus known as the Cupid Rooms last month. "But it is also a story about the social life of the Pompeiian society and actually the Roman world in this phase of history."

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The Guardian reports that the House of the Vettii was located in one of Pompeii’s wealthy neighborhoods. The property included statues, gardens, fountains, vibrant — and sometimes erotic — frescoes, and even a brothel. Although the house partially opened in 2016, it closed again in 2020 to allow for complete restoration work before finally reopening on January 9.

house of the vettii

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This luxurious residence houses an impressive collection of Fresco decorations typical of the wall paintings in the houses of rich Pompeian traders. The excavation techniques used made it possible to preserve, in almost all the rooms in the complex, the fourth-style figure paintings completed after the earthquake of 62 A.D.. The more richly decorated rooms overlook the peristylium, including the living room with the frieze of Cupids which carry out the main productive activities of that time, from selling wine to cleaning clothes, cultivating flowers to harvesting, jewellery making to creating perfumes. The lararium painting is found in the kitchen area; a graffiti at the entrance of the house indicates that the prostitute, Eutychus, who was a slave offering herself for two Asses, carried out her affairs in the adjacent room, decorated with a number of erotic paintings. The garden of the peristyle (colonnaded garden), which had a complex system of water channels and small fountains, has been restored with the inclusion of copies of the original statues, including a unique statue of its kind depicting Priapus, the god of fertility.

This scene depicts King Minos's wife, Pasiphae, and the craftsman Daedalus, whom Pasiphae ordered to construct a cow so she could sleep with her husbands treasured bull. Her lust towards the bull was a consequence of King Minos refusing to sacrifice the bull to Poseidon, angering the god who punished King Minos by making Pasiphae lust after the bull. Daedalus and his son Icarus were punished through imprisonment by King Minos for his assistance, leading into the famous myth of a winged escape from Crete. This mythological scene is located on the east wall of the north triclinium, which is located next to the large peristyle.

Pompeii home owned by two former slaves more than 1,900 years ago is restored to its former glory - Daily Mail

Pompeii home owned by two former slaves more than 1,900 years ago is restored to its former glory.

Posted: Tue, 10 Jan 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]

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Tucked within the heart of the illustrious Pompeii Archaeological Park, stands the House of the Vettii, a captivating testament to the sophistication and grandeur of ancient Roman life. A rare survivor of the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, this residential structure offers invaluable insights into the architectural prowess, artistic sensibilities, and daily routines of its former inhabitants. Beginning with the Renaissance interest in all things classical, architectural historians and archaeologists have been debating the form and function of ancient Roman houses for several hundred years. The interest in the domestic architectural form was fueled further by the re-discovery, in the middle of the eighteenth century, of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and other sites destroyed by Vesuvius. Buried by a volcanic eruption two thousand years ago, this Roman house was the epitome of wealth and style. On Tuesday, officials unveiled the newly restored home, welcoming tourists to observe the ancient architecture and elegant frescoes.

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The House of Vettii, Domus Vettiorum in Latin, likely belonged to two former slaves who became rich through the wine trade. The new restoration project, which began in 2016 under the direction of Massimo Osanna, has involved a wide range of professionals including archaeologists, architects, restorers, engineers, structural engineers and experts on gardening. Pompeii Arcaeological Park Tickets.Thank you for visiting pompeiiarchaeologicalpark.com. We made an easy to navigate website with links to the most well-known tickets providers so you can buy your tickets with confidence and safety. Its strategic location within the Pompeii Archaeological Park and the preservation of its original decorations make it a must-visit for any history enthusiast. The House of the Vettii truly stands as a testament to the societal norms, aesthetic sensibilities, and creative craftsmanship of the affluent Romans in Pompeii.

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"The House of the Vettii is like the history of Pompeii and actually of Roman society within one house," Pompeii's director, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, said as he showed off an area known as the Cupid Rooms. The House of the Vettii, a significant point of interest within the Pompeii Archaeological Park, is conveniently located in the Regio VI district. As you enter the park from the main Porta Marina entrance, head east on Via dell’Abbondanza, one of the main streets of ancient Pompeii. The House of the Vettii in Pompeii, named after its presumed owners, the Vettii brothers, served as a residential building with a distinct societal role. This grandiose domicile was a symbol of wealth and status, intended to display the prosperity of the Vettii, successful freedmen who ascended the social ladder through commerce.

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It stands out as one of the most complex archaeological heritage restoration projects of the last few decades. It has proved particularly difficult to remove the layers of wax applied to the frescoes in the past with the intention of protecting and enhancing them. Unfortunately, this restoration method has proved to be extremely harmful and has obscured many of the details of the elegant paintings, with depictions of fantastic architecture and mythological scenes.

In addition to having part of their names in common, they shared a common past — not as descendants of noble Roman families accustomed to opulence, but rather, Pompeii experts say, almost certainly, as once enslaved men who were later freed. That is delighting tourists and rewarding experts with tantalizing fresh insights into the everyday life of what is one of the most celebrated remnants of the ancient world. The unveiling of the restored home is yet another sign of the rebirth of Pompeii, which followed decades of modern bureaucratic neglect, flooding and pillaging by thieves in search of artifacts to sell. Almost 2,000 years ago, Mount Vesuvius erupted and smothered the Roman town of Pompeii.

"We're seeing here the last phase of the Pompeian wall painting with incredible details, so you can stand before these images for hours and still discover new details," he added ahead of Tuesday's reopening. Another room, near the kitchen, is decorated with graphic erotic wall art and archaeologists believe this room would have been used as a brothel, something that was common in the homes of the elite at the time, as prostitution was permitted both socially and legally in Pompeii. Although the images depicted on the walls of the brothels are often sensual and alluring, the sex workers of Pompeii were enslaved people. In addition to the Cupid Rooms, visitors will see bronze and marble statues inside the home, planted gardens, marble fountains, and walls and walls of extravagant art depicting sacrifices, hunts, erotic scenes and Greek mythology.

The patron-client system revolved around asymmetrical social relationships whereby lower ranking clients were bound to their patrons by the qualities of trust (fides) and dutifulness (pietas). Governed by ancestral custom (mos maiorum), clients would seek support and favors from the patron; in turn the patron provided protection, support, and benefaction, collectively known as patrocinium. This system had changed somewhat by the time of the brothers Vettii and it is unclear to what extent the patron-client system factored in their lives or in their own domestic sphere.

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