Villa Boscoreale

Last updated

Villa Regina at Boscoreale
Villa Regina - Boscoreale - Campania - Italy - July 9th 2013 - 01.jpg
Villa Regina, view from above
LocationBoscoreale, Province of Naples, Campania, Italy
Region Magna Graecia
Coordinates 40°45′41″N14°28′17″E / 40.761389°N 14.471389°E / 40.761389; 14.471389
TypeDwelling
Site notes
ManagementSoprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Pompei, Ercolano e Stabia
Website Sito Archeologico di Boscoreale (in Italian)

Villa Boscoreale is a name given to any of several Roman villas discovered in the district of Boscoreale, [1] Italy. They were all buried and preserved by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, along with Pompeii and Herculaneum. [2] The only one visible in situ today is the Villa Regina, the others being reburied soon after their discovery. Although these villas can be classified as "rustic" ( villae rusticae ) rather than of otium due to their agricultural sections and sometimes lack of the most luxurious amenities, they were often embellished with extremely luxurious decorations such as frescoes, testifying to the wealth of the owners. Among the most important finds are the exquisite frescoes from the Villa of Publius Fannius Synistor and the sumptuous Boscoreale Treasure of the Villa della Pisanella, which is now displayed in several major museums.

Contents

In Roman times this area, like the whole of Campania, was agricultural despite its proximity to cities including Pompeii, and specialised in wine and olive oil. [3]

Information on, and objects from, the villas can also be seen in the nearby Antiquarium di Boscoreale.

Other Villas in Boscoreale

Many other Roman villas were discovered in the vicinity, often by "treasure" hunters towards the end of the 19th century after which they were reburied, including notably the villas:

Villa Regina

Villa Regina interior view Villa Regina interior view.jpg
Villa Regina interior view
The wine cellar with "dolia" Villa Regina 4.jpg
The wine cellar with "dolia"
Pig found in a room of the villa Regina Calco di maiale (Boscoreale).jpg
Pig found in a room of the villa Regina

This rustic villa was discovered more recently in 1977 and therefore has been preserved in its complete state as buried 8m below ground level. The villa is a comfortable working farm rather than a luxurious estate that others nearby were. Nonetheless, an elegant central courtyard is colonnaded on three sides with columns of red and white stucco.

Large quantities of pottery and farm implements were found. Plaster casts of the original entrance doors were made from the hollow spaces left. A plaster cast of a pig found here and killed in the catastrophe was also made.

It also includes preserved parts of a wine press. [11] Near the centre of the villa is the wine cellar in which 18 dolia , of total capacity 10,000 litres, were buried for storing the must from the adjoining press.

An unusual find was an oil lamp dating from the 3-5th c. AD showing that the place was tunnelled into in the later Roman era.

Plants at Villa Regina

Pollen analysis conducted at Villa Regina identified various species of cultivated plant life. Tree varieties included Birch, Hazelnut, Cypress, Ash, Walnut, Pine and Olive. Flowers at the Villa included Anemone, Borage, Dianthus, Amaranth, Aster, Sedge, Geranium, Buttercup, Mallow. [12] Pollen samples additionally confirmed the cultivation of grapes at Villa Regina, likely pressed into wine on site. The holes in the ground left by the roots of the Roman vines were found and vines have again been planted in them.[ citation needed ]

Villa of P. Fannius Synistor

Plan of Villa of P. Fannius Synistor La villa pompeiana plan.jpg
Plan of Villa of P. Fannius Synistor
Transparent glass bowl of fruit. Detail from wall painting in Bedroom M of the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor Glasschale, Villa Boscoreale.jpg
Transparent glass bowl of fruit. Detail from wall painting in Bedroom M of the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor

Although the villa was of relatively modest size compared to others in the area and had no atrium, pool or sculpture collection, its frescoes were exceptional in their beauty and quality. [13]

Evidence in tablets and graffiti shows that the house was probably built around 40-30 BC. [14] The villa was privately discovered, excavated, partially dismantled and reburied in 1900.

The villa had three stories, complete with a bath suite and an underground passage to a stable and agricultural buildings, the latter not excavated. The central ground floor of the living quarters consisted of over thirty rooms or enclosures surrounding a peristyle. The building featured an impressive main entrance approached by five broad steps leading to a colonnaded forecourt rather than the typical atrium.

Ownership of the villa has been contested. While there is no doubt P. Fannius Synistor did reside there, excavated bronze tablets show another name, that of Lucius Herennius Florus. Many things were marked with seals in ancient Rome to indicate possession. It is believed that since the tablet with the letters "L. HER. FLO" on it was found inside the villa, it must serve as a mark of villa ownership. [15] These two are the only confirmed owners in the early 1st century BC and 1st century AD, though there may have been earlier owners.

Art

Wall fresco of a seated woman with a kithara, 40-30 BC, from the Villa Boscoreale of P. Fannius Synistor; Late Roman Republic, but most likely representing Berenice II of Ptolemaic Egypt wearing a stephane (i.e. royal diadem) on her head Boscoreale1.jpg
Wall fresco of a seated woman with a kithara, 40-30 BC, from the Villa Boscoreale of P. Fannius Synistor; Late Roman Republic, but most likely representing Berenice II of Ptolemaic Egypt wearing a stephane (i.e. royal diadem) on her head
Roman fresco from Boscoreale, Metropolitan Museum of Art Roman fresco from Boscoreale, 43-30 BCE, Metropolitan Museum of Art.jpg
Roman fresco from Boscoreale, Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Villa is most notable for its works of art, especially its highly skilled buon fresco paintings, said to be the highest quality Roman frescoes ever found [17] and which are now scattered around the world after being auctioned following removal.

Most of the figures in the frescoes have characteristics of Greek Hellenism or Classicism. For instance, those found in the living room appear to be depictions of either philosophers, such as Epicurus, Zeno or Menedemus, or possibly old kings, like King Kinyras of Cyprus. [18] Similarly, the bedrooms of the Second Style also evoke Hellenistic qualities, such as are seen at the Tomb of Lyson or at Kallikles. [19] At a time when the Roman Republic was ending and classicism somewhat fading, this is considered as an interesting comment on style and taste. Seemingly, Greek representations in the home were considered acceptable, even admired and sophisticated. The images survived the quick succession of Vesuvian cataclysms because of the skill of the fresco work and the absence of organic materials such as indigo, murex purple, red madder among its pigments. The reddening of some of its yellow ochre shows temperatures to have exceeded 300 °C. [20]

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, together with King's College, London, is building a virtual model of the Villa, linking the scattered frescoes, based on the notes and plan drawn at the time of excavation by archaeologist Felice Barnabei (1902), photographs taken of the excavation, the research of Phyllis W. Lehmann (1953) and axonometric drawings of the plan, locating the images on the walls, by Maxwell Anderson (1987). [21]

Metropolitan Museum cubiculum reconstruction

Bacchus and Silenus, British Museum Bacchus and Silenus BM 1899.2-15.1 n02.jpg
Bacchus and Silenus, British Museum

The fullest reconstruction from original frescoes at present is of a bedroom ( cubiculum diurnum), one of the holdings of the Metropolitan Museum since 1903, and since 2007 a feature of the new Roman Gallery. It consists of most of a newly cleaned and reconstructed set of walls entirely painted in highly accomplished fresco. [22] These spacious Roman II Style murals represent their walls as open above socle or dado height, except for the architraves above and a few columns that, together with those other features, frame vividly coloured architectural views of buildings, columns, landscape, garden scenes, religious statues, beyond, emphasizing expansion and grandeur, but including no humans and only a few birds on the short, window wall. This is also the technique in other unreconstructed rooms. For example, In another bedroom, known as Room M, the frescoes depict columns that appear to expand into another room, giving the sense of a much larger, almost unending, space. The facing long walls (19 ft or 5.8 m) of the Metropolitan cubiculum are mirror images of each other, possibly by transfer, with variations. In addition, each is divided into four panels by painted columns.

Distance in these paintings is built up through a series of orthogonal architectural surfaces, and indicated by overlap occlusion, foreshortening, diminution, pronounced aerial perspective, but without consistent vanishing points. [23] Modelling is indicated by side-shading with slight, selective cast shadow. Pompeian red in front planes, contrasting with the blue tone of the fainter, further planes, provides an additional effective cue for depth. The room had one, north-facing, outside window, through which pyroclastic flows from Vesuvius appear to have entered. As part of the sophisticated depictive scheme, the dado or lower parts of the walls are depicted as themselves, but in First Style. Ledges and niches there show near objects: "metal and glass vases on shelves and tables appearing to project out from the wall", playfully belying the common impression that perspective is always for depicting recession from the picture plane. [24] In other parts of the Villa there are brightly coloured non-figurative walls, in First Style, some of which are on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Louvre Museum.

Villa della Pisanella

Plan of Villa della Pisanella: A - courtyard, atrium, B - kitchen, C-G - bath with tepidarium, caldarium, etc., H - stables (?), E - larder, K and L - living rooms, N - dining room, M - anteroom, O - bakery, P - wine press, Q - corridor, R - wine storehouse, T - threshing floor, U - pluvial, VVV - living rooms, X - hand mill, Z - oil mills Villa boscoreale plan.png
Plan of Villa della Pisanella: A - courtyard, atrium, B - kitchen, C-G - bath with tepidarium, caldarium, etc., H - stables (?), E - larder, K and L - living rooms, N - dining room, M - anteroom, O - bakery, P - wine press, Q - corridor, R - wine storehouse, T - threshing floor, U - pluvial, VVV - living rooms, X - hand mill, Z - oil mills

The villa was first unearthed by the landowners over several seasons from 1876.

In 1894 excavations brought to light a villa rustica covering 1000 m2 with clearly defined residential sector with baths and a pars rustica with farm buildings and warehouses. The breeding of farmyard animals was practiced and most of the rooms on the ground floor were used for processing and conservation of oil, wine and cereals.

Everything was still in place and arrangement of the objects was exactly as they would normally have been: furnishings, bronze bathtubs decorated with masks in the shape of lion heads seemed to be ready for use. In a large chest were fifty keys and silver tableware; in the kitchen the skeleton of a dog on a chain; in the stable the bones of several tethered horses, one of which had managed to wriggle out and escape. In the olive pressing-room (torcularium [25] ) the first three human skeletons came to light, including that of a woman, probably the mistress of the house, who wore splendid gold earrings with topaz jewels [26] and was probably the last owner, named Maxima, a name written on many of the silver vessels. The previous owner of the villa was probably L. Caecilius Lucundus, a banker from Pompeii, who inherited the wealth of the Julio-Claudian dynasty in Campania, who was the father of Maxima. [27]

In 1895 in the torcularium the magnificent so-called Boscoreale Treasure was found in a chest and consisted of 102 items: silver tableware, bracelets, earrings, rings, a double gold chain. A thousand gold coins were still in the remains of a leather bag. At the time of the eruption it was probably one of the safest rooms in the villa where the owner gave the order to a trusted man to hide it for better times. All the treasures were smuggled out to France and sold.

The excavations of the villa were resumed in 1896 by Angiolo Pasqui. [28]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Perspective (graphical)</span> Form of graphical projection where the projection lines converge to one or more points

Linear or point-projection perspective is one of two types of graphical projection perspective in the graphic arts; the other is parallel projection. Linear perspective is an approximate representation, generally on a flat surface, of an image as it is seen by the eye. Perspective drawing is useful for representing a three-dimensional scene in a two-dimensional medium, like paper. It is based on the optical fact that for a person an object looks N times (linearly) smaller if it has been moved N times further from the eye than the original distance was.

Below are notable events in archaeology that occurred in 1903.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roman gardens</span>

Roman gardens and ornamental horticulture became highly developed under Roman civilization, and thrived from 150 BC to 350 AD. The Gardens of Lucullus, on the Pincian Hill in Rome, introduced the Persian garden to Europe around 60 BC. It was seen as a place of peace and tranquillity, a refuge from urban life, and a place filled with religious and symbolic meaning. As Roman culture developed and became increasingly influenced by foreign civilizations, the use of gardens expanded.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Villa Poppaea</span> Ancient Roman villa

The Villa Poppaea is an ancient luxurious Roman seaside villa located in Torre Annunziata between Naples and Sorrento, in Southern Italy. It is also called the Villa Oplontis or Oplontis Villa A. as it was situated in the ancient Roman town of Oplontis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boscoreale</span> Comune in Campania, Italy

Boscoreale is an Italian comune (municipality) and town in the Metropolitan City of Naples, Campania, with a population of 27,457 in 2011. Located in the Vesuvius National Park, under the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, it is known for the fruit and vineyards of Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio. There is also a fine Vesuvian lava stone production.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Villa of the Mysteries</span> Building in Pompeii, Italy

The Villa of the Mysteries is a well-preserved suburban ancient Roman villa on the outskirts of Pompeii, southern Italy. It is famous for the series of exquisite frescos in Room 5, which are usually interpreted as showing the initiation of a bride into a Greco-Roman mystery cult. These are now among the best known of the relatively rare survivals of Ancient Roman painting from the 1st century BC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pompeian Styles</span> Artistic styles found in Pompeii

The Pompeian Styles are four periods which are distinguished in ancient Roman mural painting. They were originally delineated and described by the German archaeologist August Mau (1840–1909) from the excavation of wall paintings at Pompeii, which is one of the largest groups of surviving Roman frescoes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">House of the Tragic Poet</span> Ancient house in Pompeii, Italy

The House of the Tragic Poet is a Roman house in Pompeii, Italy dating to the 2nd century BC. The house is famous for its elaborate mosaic floors and frescoes depicting scenes from Greek mythology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Temple of Isis (Pompeii)</span>

The Temple of Isis is a Roman temple dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Isis. This small and almost intact temple was one of the first discoveries during the excavation of Pompeii in 1764. Its role as a Hellenized Egyptian temple in a Roman colony was fully confirmed with an inscription detailed by Francisco la Vega on July 20, 1765. Original paintings and sculptures can be seen at the Museo Archaeologico in Naples; the site itself remains on the Via del Tempio di Iside. In the aftermath of the temple's discovery many well-known artists and illustrators swarmed to the site.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pompeii</span> Ancient city near modern Naples, Italy

Pompeii was an ancient city in what is now the comune (municipality) of Pompei, near Naples, in the Campania region of Italy. Along with Herculaneum, Stabiae, and many surrounding villas, the city was buried under 4 to 6 m of volcanic ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oplontis</span> Ancient Roman archaeological site

Oplontis is an ancient Roman archaeological site, located in the town of Torre Annunziata, south of Naples in the Campania region of southern Italy. The excavated site comprises two Roman villas, the best-known of which is Villa A, the so-called Villa Poppaea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stabiae</span> Ancient Roman town

Stabiae was an ancient city situated near the modern town of Castellammare di Stabia and approximately 4.5 km southwest of Pompeii. Like Pompeii, and being only 16 km (9.9 mi) from Mount Vesuvius, it was largely buried by tephra ash in 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius, in this case at a shallower depth of up to 5 m.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">House of the Centenary</span>

The House of the Centenary was the house of a wealthy resident of Pompeii, preserved by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. The house was discovered in 1879, and was given its modern name to mark the 18th centenary of the disaster. Built in the mid-2nd century BC, it is among the largest houses in the city, with private baths, a nymphaeum, a fish pond (piscina), and two atria. The Centenary underwent a remodeling around 15 AD, at which time the bath complex and swimming pool were added. In the last years before the eruption, several rooms had been extensively redecorated with a number of paintings.

The gens Fannia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome, which first appears in history during the second century BC. The first member of this gens to attain the consulship was Gaius Fannius Strabo, in 161 BC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boscoreale Treasure</span>

The Boscoreale Treasure is a large collection of exquisite silver and gold Roman objects discovered in the ruins of the ancient Villa della Pisanella at Boscoreale, near Pompeii, southern Italy. Consisting of over a hundred pieces of silverware, as well as gold coins and jewellery, it is now mostly kept at the Louvre Museum in Paris, although parts of the treasure can also be found at the British Museum.

The conservation and restoration of Pompeian frescoes describes the activities, methods, and techniques that have historically been and are currently being used to care for the preserved remains of the frescoes from the archeological site of Pompeii, Italy. The ancient city of Pompeii is famously known for its demise in A.D. 79 after the fatal eruption of Mount Vesuvius wiped out the population and buried the city beneath layers of compact lava material. In 1738, King Charles III or Charles of Bourbon, began explorations in Portici, Resina, Castellammare di Stabia, a Civita, where it was believed that the ancient cities of Pompeii, Stabiae, and Herculaneum were buried beneath. The first phase of the excavations at Pompeii started in 1748, which led to the first conservation and restoration efforts of the frescoes since their burial, and in 1764, open-air excavations began at Pompeii. Pompeii has a long history of excavation and restoration that began without a strong foundation or strategy. After centuries of cronyism, recurring financial shortages, and on-again-off-again restoration, the city's frescoes and structures were left in poor condition. In 1997, Pompeii was added to the UNESCO List of World Heritage Sites.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">House of the Prince of Naples</span> Roman townhouse in Pompeii

The House of the Prince of Naples is a Roman domus (townhouse) located in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii near Naples, Italy. The structure is so named because the Prince and Princess of Naples attended a ceremonial excavation of selected rooms there in 1898.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geremia Discanno</span> Italian artist

Geremia Discanno, 1839 - 1907, was an Italian genre and landscape painter, who collaborated with archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli, art historian Emil Presuhn, and Naples-based chromolithographer Victor Steeger, to record wall paintings in the Roman ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum that were being excavated at the time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Villa of Agrippa Postumus</span>

Agrippa Postumus, a grandson of the Emperor Augustus, had a villa on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, which was buried in the eruption of 79 AD. The villa lies within the current comune of Boscotrecase, Campania, Italy. The villa is best known for its ancient Roman works of art, especially its frescoes. Because the ash from Mount Vesuvius's eruption preserved the frescoes, they were able to be excavated between 1903 and 1905. The frescoes come from various cubicula, or bedrooms that served as places of sociability and business, along the villa's southern hallway that overlooks the bay of Naples.

References

  1. "Villas in Pompeii and in the area between Vesuvius and Stabia". Pompeiiinpictures.com. 24 October 2021. Retrieved 14 May 2022.
  2. "Boscoreale - AD79eruption". sites.google.com.
  3. Hornblower, Simon and Antony Spawforth. Oxford Classical Dictionary. London: Oxford University Press, 1996. 254.
  4. "Boscoreale. La villa del Fondo Acunzo. Villa rustica in fondo D'Acunzo. Excavated by Sig. Ferruccio De Prisco in 1903. Reburied after excavation". pompeiiinpictures.com. 12 October 2021. Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  5. "Boscoreale, Villa Rustica di Marcus Livius Marcellus. Excavated in 1928, but only in part". pompeiiinpictures.com. 13 October 2021. Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  6. "Boscoreale now Pompeii, Villa rustica nel Fondo di Antonio Prisco". pompeiiinpictures.com. 12 October 2021. Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  7. "Pompeii (formerly Boscoreale), Villa del fondo Ippolito Zurlo". pompeiiinpictures.com. 6 October 2021. Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  8. "Pompeii (formerly Boscoreale). Villa rustica nel fondo di Raffaele Brancaccio". pompeiiinpictures.com (in Italian). 12 October 2021. Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  9. "Boscoreale, Villa rustica in proprietà del Vito Antonio Cirillo near piazza Mercato". pompeiiinpictures.com. 6 October 2021. Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  10. "Boscoreale, Villa rustica nel fondo Pasquale Vitiello. Excavated 1901 -1902". pompeiiinpictures.com. 11 October 2021. Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  11. "Boscoreale, Villa Regina. Villa rustica in Contrada Villa Regina, not far from the Sarno Canal". pompeiiinpictures.com. 10 September 2023. Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  12. Grüger, Eberhard (13 March 2002). Pollen analysis of soil samples from the A.D. 79 level at station Boscoreale. Pangaea. OCLC   899273360.
  13. "Roman Frescoes from Boscoreale: The Villa of Publius Fannius Synistor in Reality and Virtual Reality" Bergmann et al., The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin Spring 2010
  14. "The Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin Winter 1987-88: 17-36.
  15. Milne, Margerie J. "A Bronze Stamp from Boscoreale." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 09. 1930: 188-190.
  16. Pfrommer, Michael; Towne-Markus, Elana (2001). Greek Gold from Hellenistic Egypt . Los Angeles: Getty Publications (J. Paul Getty Trust). ISBN   0-89236-633-8, pp. 22–23.
  17. "Roman Frescoes from Boscoreale: The Villa of Publius Fannius Synistor in Reality and Virtual Reality" Bergmann et al., The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin Spring 2010, p 14
  18. "The Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale" p. 29
  19. "The Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale" p. 31
  20. Rudolf Meyer, "The Conservation of the Frescoes from Boscoreale in the Metropolitan Museum, in Roman Frescoes from Boscoreale.
  21. Bettina Bergmann et al., Roman Frescoes from Boscoreale: The Villa of Publius Fannius Synistor in Reality and Virtual Reality (Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 62.4 [Spring 2010]). This, the most recent work on the Villa, is the main source for information not otherwise attributed.
  22. "The Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale" p. 17
  23. Hurt, Carla (9 August 2013). "Romans paint better perspective than Renaissance artists". Found in Antiquity. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
  24. "The Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale" p. 21
  25. "Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898), Torcularium". www.perseus.tufts.edu. Retrieved 21 March 2023.
  26. Egon Caesar Conte Corti, The Destruction and Resurrection of Pompeii and Herculaneum Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1951
  27. "Exhibition "Silver from the Louvre. Boscoreale Treasure" - National Archaeological Institute with Museum". naim.bg. Retrieved 6 November 2015.
  28. Mazzocco, Luca. "Angiolo Pasqui, Etru a Casa - Protagonista". www.museoetru.it (in Italian). Retrieved 21 March 2023 via Museo Nazionale Etrusco.

Sources

Further reading

Commons-logo.svg Media related to Archaeology of Boscoreale at Wikimedia Commons

  1. "La villa pompeiana detta della Pisanella a Boscoreale : un esempio di villa rustica di epoca romana | WorldCat.org". www.worldcat.org (in Dutch). Retrieved 21 March 2023.