The
Villa of the Papyri is a private house of ancient Roman city of
Herculaneum (current commune of
Ercolano).
[1] Situated north-west of the township, the residence sits half way up the slope of the volcano
Vesuvius without other buildings to obstruct the view.
[1] The abode was owned by
Julius Caesar's father-in-law,
Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus.
[2] In AD 79, the eruption of
Vesuvius covered all of Herculaneum with some 30 m of volcanic ash over the site. Its remains were first excavated in the years between 1750 and 1765 by
Karl Weber by means of underground tunnels. Its name derives from the discovery of a library in the house containing 1,785 carbonized
papyrus scrolls.
[1]The villa's front stretched for more than 250 meters parallel to the coastline. It was also surrounded by a garden closed off by porticoes, but with an ample stretch of vegetable gardens, vineyards and woods down to a little harbor. Sited a few hundred metres from the nearest house in Herculaneum, Piso's home had four levels disposed in a series of terraces on the sloping site and was one of the most luxurious houses in all of Herculaneum and Pompeii. The Villa of the Papyri also housed a large collection of eighty sculptures of magnificent quality, many of them now conserved in the rooms of the large bronzes at the Naples National Archaeological Museum.[1]
The villa remains faithful in its general layout to the fundamental structural and architectural scheme of the suburban villa in the country around Pompeii. The atrium functioned as an entrance hall and a means of communication with the various parts of the house. The entrance opened with a columned portico on the sea side. Around the bowl of the atrium impluvium were eleven fountain statues depicting Satyrs pouring water from a pitcher and Amorini pouring water from the mouth of a dolphin. Other statues and busts were found in the corners around the atrium walls.[1]
The first peristyle had ten columns on each side and a swimming bath in the center. In this enclosure were found the bronze herma of Doryphorus, a replica of Polykleitos' athlete, and the herma of an Amazon made by Apollonios son of Archias of Athens.[3] The large second peristyle could be reached by passing through a large tablinum in which, under a propylaeum, was the archaic statue of Athena Promachos. A collection of bronze busts were in the interior of the tablinum. These included the head of Scipio Africanus.[1]
