Pompeii - December 30, 2011 - Villa of the Mysteries

Inside Villa of the Mysteries

Villa of the Mysteries

A short walk from the tombs and the Herculaneum gate lies the Villa of the Mysteries. Framed by a wall of trailing rosemary the building is well preserved and has been very carefully reconstructed. So much so that it looks like with a few trips to IKEA and some updated plumbing, one could move right in.

This villa appears in almost every book on Roman art because of a fresco that flows around one of the rooms in an immense and impressive cycle. The painting is thought to represent the rites of the cult of Dionysius, a cult whose wild abandon and ecstasies during celebrations were shunned and eventually banned by the earlier more conservative Rome of the republic.

The room of the mysteries in the Villa of the Mysteries

Once inside the villa getting to the fresco was not as easy as one would think. The floor plan is rather maze like and we ended up in the same peristyle three times going around in circles until I finally spotted a German tourist who was also in search of this room. It’s funny I have looked at the floor plan of this house for decades, I know where the room is, however translating that knowledge into 3-D is rather difficult.

We did eventually find the room and I was taken aback by how vibrant and clear the paintings still are after nearly two thousand years buried in ash.

I read somewhere that the villa had been abandoned after the earthquake of 62 AD, though I am not sure where I read that and it seems somewhat unlikely if the house was in relatively good condition.

The exit from here leads out of the Pompeii archeological site and onto a rather pleasant road that winded and twisted and wound its way down to the train station....eventually. It was about a twenty-five or thirty minute walk and there were a number of times that I thought we were lost. As a delightful post script a driver deliberately drove through a puddle of mud that splashed us from head to toe. YAY! Italy in December.

Small Atrium in the Villa of the Mysteries