House of the Beautiful Impluvium

House of the Beautiful Impluvium

 

 

Address: Insula 9
Area: 474 square meters
Rooms: 11

 

House of the Beautiful ImpluviumThe 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.

 

House of the Beautiful Impluvium  House of the Beautiful Impluvium