Explore a villa once owned by one of Ancient Rome’s most infamous emperors.
We have Vesuvius to thank for the many time capsules found south of Naples, Italy, today. Everyone has heard of Pompeii or Herculaneum, but have your heard about the amazingly preserved Villas of San Marco or Poppaea?
I have already written about the amazing Villa San Marco, so now let’s explore Villa Poppaea, owned by none other than Nero himself. Villa Poppaea resided in the town of Ancient Roman town of Oplontis. It is believed that the villa was used by Nero’s second wife, Poppaea Sabina as her main non-Rome home. Today the villa is called Villa Poppaea or Villa Oplontis.
The villa today as seen from the modern street level.
Villa Poppaea was buried by the famous volcano, Vesuvius. The villa was remodeled many times after its first construction in the 1st century BCE. It was rediscovered in the 18th century and explored in the mid-19th century and then again from 1964 until the mid-1980s. Excavations can no longer be extended because they are underneath modern buildings.
The floor plan of the known villa.
This villa is huge and very easy to get lost in, even with a map.
Close up on the front peristyle (a row of columns surrounding the edge of a building or courtyard.) We often think the Classical age as very white, with shining marble, but it was in fact very colorful.
Behind those giant columns is a very simple room today, the north salon (room 23). The villa would have been two stories in some parts. There are still existing stairs that lead to missing second floors. Through the window is one of many courtyards.
The courtyard from above, looking towards the previous room.
Turn around and you find yourself in the atrium, which is the usually the entry room of the home. Homes were often centered around the atrium, which had a open roof and a small pool for water collection.
The room would have been surrounded by frescoes and a garden view, now blocked by a modern wall.
Today, you have to cut through the kitchen to get to more rooms. These would have been ovens and there was a fire pit as well, far right.
This room may have been the triclinium, which was used for dining Ancient Roman style. You lounged on couches, usually three of them.
And now the other side of the room. It is really hard to get a good picture of these rooms.
This was the caldarium. It can be found in the bath complex areas of a home or public bath house. You would take a hot plunge bath in this room.
The fresco in the recess is Hercules in the Garden of Hesperides.
Below the courtyard with the fountain is this lovely room. Not sure what it was used for, but it did have an amazing fresco on one wall, the other wall is lost.
Also in this room are these plaster casts of giant window shutters. The void left behind by the rotted shutters was filled in with plaster, preserving what they looked like. They also did this with bodies in Pompeii.
This room (room 4) would have been the tepidarium, part of the bath complex. It has a heating system called a hypocaust below the floor that forced hot air through warming the room. You can barely make out the faint designs on the frescoes of birds and fruit.
Now we go to the other side of the villa to this lovely room (8) with a view and a lovely fresco.
From there we are going to follow this peristyle (9) around and enjoy the bright frescoes.
I would love a hallway decorated like this.
Now we head into what is called a rustic courtyard, or an enclosed peristyle. You can really see the second floor here.
Looking onto this courtyard is a room with a lararium, or a shrine to the Roman household spirits and gods. These shrines are usually found in the atrium.
Heading back out to the peristyle (9) to look at some of the Roman bedrooms (cubiculum). Bedrooms are very small, just large enough really for a bed. The Romans didn’t live in their bedrooms like we do today. They were only for sleeping. I was struck at how red this room was and you can even see some of the ceiling plaster that was restored. The Romans even colored their ceilings.
Another bedroom is found at the corner at the end of room 9. This one was much larger and could fit more people.
It’s amazing how much of the frescoes survived. Some plaster would have stayed on the walls, while other pieces would have fallen on the ground. Much of the frescoes seen in this villa were reconstructed from original plaster.
That bedroom would have looked out on this fantastic courtyard (10) which would have had a garden.
Cruising along this peristyle to more rooms.
The next part of the villa is a very strange collection of rooms, with miniature courtyards. This room is not labeled on the map, but it is between rooms 19 and 18. It is still a question what this room and its matching one (17) would have been used for. The windows across the way would have looked out to a swimming pool. Yes, as swimming pool. Underneath the right window you can see some of the original stonework that once graced the walls in this room.
If you look through the window on the left, you get to see this gem. It would have been open to the air, allowing more light into the room. A small little garden may have been planted there. The window to the right looked onto an exedra, basically a party room.
Room 17 is very similar, but if you look through its left window you get this view across the exedra into the other room from above. A nice little garden would have also been in there.
Finally, the last room (15). This is an interesting room with an apse window looking into room 16. The last few rooms were most likely used for entertaining, a must for any wealthy Roman.
Villa Poppaea is a confusing mix of a ton of rooms. The Ancient Romans just laid out their homes very differently than we do. They still had bedrooms (although rather small), dining rooms and living rooms. They were also very into gardens, both for food and herbs, as well as to beautify their homes. Villa Poppaea gives us an excellent glimpse into the past and how those wealthy Romans really lived.
If you want to explore Villa Poppaea more, check out this website. It has a zillion photos and a map that helped me figure out where I took most of these photos. The numbers for rooms, however, on their map do not correlate to the map I used for this post.
Check out my post on Villa San Marco for another nearby Ancient Roman Villa.
or
Explore that super famous buried city of Pompeii!
