• Home
• Europe
• Italy
• Pompeii

House of the Figured Capitals

Address: Regio VII, Insula 4
Area: 870 square meters
Rooms: 17

The House of the Figured Capitals is located on the south side of Via della Fortuna, approximately in the middle of Insula 4. The house was first excavated in 1831 and then again in 1836. The House of the Figured Capitals got its name from the figures carved into the capitals of Pilaster at the entrance to the House of the Figured Capitals. These capitols were on two columns at the main entrance. On the side facing the street there were carved heads of satyrs and maenads. Naked men to the waist, women are dressed in modest robes, but their expressions and hugs make it clear that they also enjoy a love relationship.

The house of the Figured Capitals as a whole was preserved quite poorly. Most of the building collapsed during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. But by what is left here, it can be understood that a very wealthy citizen lived here. One can only imagine the scope and high cost of the interior.

The entrance hall (a) opens on the south side of Via della Fortuna and leads to a rectangular atrium (b) or a central living room with central lighting or a home pool for collecting rainwater. On the south side of the pool there is a fluted sheet. The walls of the hallway and the atrium are in a ruined state and have practically lost their decorative plaster. The remaining fragments of gypsum are too badly damaged to determine their initial decoration. As you can see from the photos, the house is in a general state of devastation, with a small amount of remaining decoration. The opening in the northeast corner of the atrium is a medium-sized room (s). The room was lit by a narrow window on its north wall.

Adjoining this room is the service room (d), which has the remains of a staircase from the staircase that led to the upper floor in the southeast corner. Directly to the south of the office room are two small rooms - bedroom (e and f), the more southern of which have a narrow doorway in the southern wall, opening onto the neighboring ala (g). A similar connection with scarlet (h) is on the western side of the atrium, where there is a connecting doorway to the next bedroom (i).

Room (j) in the center of the western side of the atrium is somewhat unusual in that its northern and southern walls of the room were “doubled” with additional brickwork lining. In the northeast corner of the cubulum there is a doorway that leads to the triclinium (j), where the host family dined.