Address: Insula 9
Area: 474 square meters
Rooms: 11
The House of the Beautiful Impluvium
stands on Via delle Abbondaz. It was first excavated in 1912 and
again in 1952. The main entrance is currently blocked by a
concrete wall. The original wooden door is completely rotted, but
left empty. Archaeologists poured this void with concrete and got an
exact copy of that door. On the one hand, this gave us the
opportunity to see the facade as it looked at the time of the
eruption, but on the other hand, the concrete door blocked the
entrance to the House of the Beautiful Impluvium.
The House
of the Beautiful Impluvium got its name because of the beautiful
impluvium or the indoor pool in the center of the atrium or the living room
of the mansion. Impluvium was faced with marble from Africa, Greece
and Turkey. Initially, the large atrium (b) had four columns that
supported the roof above the living room, but were subsequently
removed. Apparently it happened during an earthquake in 62 AD. Thus,
the atrium was completely roofless.
Rooms are located around
the three sides of the atrium. A wooden chest and a cabinet were
found along the fourth (western) side, in which there were many
artifacts, including jewels and silver, as well as a treasure trove
of silver and gold coins. It is difficult to say what happened to
the owners of the House of the Beautiful Impluvium. Clearly, they
were not going to run away from the city. In any case, they did not
take the most expensive. Perhaps they were visiting and decided to
wait out the eruption. It is also possible that they left the city
as quickly as they could. And it is quite possible that during the
archaeological excavations the voids left by the bodies of the dead
were simply destroyed. Much of the wall decoration in the house has
been lost, although the three rooms, cubiclum, tablin and
triclinium, do retain some of their original frescoes of the third
style. The first of these rooms, a cubicle (c) on the eastern side
of the atrium, was decorated with red panels framed by columns on
the borders of colored squares. On the south side of the atrium,
facing the entrance, opens a large tablin with peristylee at the
back. The home office (d) was decorated with panels of blue and red.