Pompeii Residential Architecture

From Wikireedia
Jump to: navigation, search
There are security restrictions on this page

See also Pompeii - Houses and Social Status

Contents

Introduction

Pompeii retained its Greek influence after colonization by Rome in AD80 as did much of the Roman Empire. Romans considered Greece a source of culture, beauty, and wisdom, and knowledge of Greek culture was a status symbol and this was reflected in the works of art both acquired and emulated by Pompeian citizens.

Around the second century BC, wealthy Roman families began building houses and larger villas in the region. Over the next two centuries, these families also constructed estates there, and the influx of prominent Roman brought affluence to the area. The homes played an important role in Roman social rituals; it was the center of business and entertainment. Although we consider the houses, villas and art works therein to be extraordinary, both Pompeii and Herculaneum were at the time comparatively ordinary, striving to keep up with the stylistic grandeur of Rome and Naples


Most of the houses in Pompeii are single story but some late buildings were two stories (esp. AD62-79). On the lower level it might be open to the street - may be a shop. On the top level there was a panoramic picture windows - vistas were very important - had a very greek influence The earliest residential building were from the Samnite period - some were substantial houses

Domas italica - ideal roman house plan - as designated by Vitruvius. The house was a place to conduct business and entertain as well as a private dwelling and access to the private parts of the houses could be strictly controlled using wooden screen, curtains, blinds etcetera. However, this evidence would have been destroyed by the volcano. The surge in the interest in building and decorataing luxurious houses coincided with the profits of the empire.

Fauces Throat of the house the entrance Vestibulum - eaves over the door. There are two Celli off the Fauces. They could be shops (terverni), leased out or sleeping quarters. These leads to the Atrium (or meeting room). We think of houses as escapes from the real world. In Roman times it would be a place to do business - a very public part of the house. The Implovium Pool is in the center of the atrium Compluvium where rain water was caught. The Cubiculum are the bedrooms of the house - very small dark places to sleep

The wings or Alli of the house - The place where they kept the wooden shrines of the ancestors - with wooden doors with pictures and other mementoes of the dead relatives. Include a look-a-like mask which a family member wold put on on days where they would remember them

Tablinum - started a master bedroom - but became a place where archives are kept - almost a passageway. Later became office or reception room. The dining room the Triclinium which is also off the atrium. The garden the Hortus which was open to the sky. The geometrical. Very few windows. This is the case at the beginning but this changes over time.

Mosaics

The fashion came from the Greeks and can be found in the largest Atrium houses. The earliest designs had simple geometric patterns but soon house owners were adding their own emblema. A fine example can be found at the House of Menander which has a picture of pygmies on the Nile. The finest examples can be found at the House of the Faun


The House of the Surgeon and House of Salust

Named after all the surgeon implements that were found. It was built in the 3rd C BC and conforms to the ideal to the Domas Italica. One cell is closed and one open to the street for a shop. Atrium etc

In the House of Salust was also originally built in the 3rd C BC. It was renovated when the Samnites were kicked out. It has a cell for one of the fast food stands

2nd C they start to resemble Greek architecture - Hellenised Domas - Greek elements. Vestibulum vestibule. The cells are not opened up. The atrium bedroom wings and etc . The core is very much the same. But under the influence of Greek the place Greek columns and a garden which is more properly called peristyle. Then additional bedroom looking over the garden plus two additional dining rooms. Columns added to the front to show that this is a very cultured individual. But still stark and plain with few windows.

The tablinum was painted in First Style Roman Wall Painting Known as Masonry Style or Incrustation style - Trying to create an illusion of a marble wall. The wall is divided in to zones. At the bottom is the plinth above that the Socle. Orthostats are the large blocks. Then Iosodomic courses and string course and projecting cornice. It is a relief wall built up with stucco and then painted in many colors. The First Style decoration was copied from the Greeks

The House of the Vettii

Is an example of an Hellenized Domas. The tablinum is gone and replaced by a passageway but now there is a peristyle. There is more light coming on to the house. The house is a great example of Fourth Style wall painting of mythical scenes such as the punishment of Dirke, Ariadne abandoned by Theseus and Herakles strangling a serpent. The peristyle and nine impressive freizes of cupids, perfumes, baking bread etc. The atrium has a stairway to an upper story. Here is the genius of a man in a toga. He is flanked by Lares dressed in their familiar tunics. There is a striking picture of Priapus weighing his phallus against a sack of money.

The house of the Vettii, belonged to Aulus Vettius Restitutus and to Aulus Vettius Conviva, and no better expresses the economic position which they had attained towards the end of the 1st century A.D. Aside from the depiction of Priapus, triclinium has paintings which almost entirely cover the walls (one part has been lost) are on a red background and the depictions are incorporated into mock panels. The large scenes reproduce mythological characters. "Perseus and Andromeda", "Ariadne and Dionysus", "Daphne and ]]character::Apollo]]" and "Neptune and Amymone".

A freize completes the effect depicting Cupid's engaging in various activities

http://students.villanova.edu/classicssocietyclub/House_of_the_Vettii_-_peristyle_and_garden.JPG

House of the Silver Wedding

Another Hellenized Domas. Atrium has four columns in it. A banqueting hall. large opening to the peristyle garden. Oecus (principal hall) most important room in the house. They tried to stucco the columns to make them more Greek (tetra style means four columns. Used Porphyry like painted wall

House of the Faun

Very large - twice the size if the house of the Vettii and originally built in the 2nd C BC. Follows the hellenized domas type. Two peristyle courts. One small and one very large room. Has a famous mosaic of the Alexander the Great. It has 1 million tessellations. Copy of the great painting - See Naples museum. Other fine mosaics are also present - Bacchus riding a lion, Cat and quail and duck and fish. Entrance way has a pilaster with the a Corinthian capital. Painted with stone style - First Style Wall Painting painting. Impluvium has a dancing faun statue. The owners are unknown but possibly Sulla but also maybe an old Oscan family from Campania

A restored version would look very bright and colorful with first style wall painting. It has two atria in tetra style. Tufa stone made to look Greek.

The House of Menander

Hellenized Domas 2c BC. House is more irregular and axiality is lost as this is an example where the house next to Menander was annexed. Bright Orange walls

House of Panza

Many celli shops open on the streets. The pool in this house was more likely for fish to be sold. Garden was used to grow garden produce. Lots of flute columns that are plain art the bottom

House of Marcus Aurelius tiba tenas

Took up an entire city block. The house does not take up most of the space. Instead most of the space is taken up with the garden. Much more emphasis in the garden and dining rooms A second story was added to this building. The windows open out on to the compluvium. Greek Myths paintings incorporated in the grotto type.

House of the Chaste Lovers

One of the latest houses to be excavated and still being so. It is connected to a bakery. The rooms depict banqueting couples and it is possible that this was a restaurant. It has a peristyle garden and has Fourth Style Wall Painting still missing panels

Villa of the Mysteries

As the city got more crowded the rich moved out to the periphery of the city into villa such as the Villa of the Mysteries. This villa departs from the normal design. In the Roman villa you walk in to the peristyle garden first

Phase two of the villa - different order has a great podium like the has a barrel vaulted hidden passageway under the podiums. Makes it grander and muffle the sounds off the street. We are beginning to see that the exteriors are getting less severe - Elements project out of the rectangle of the villa plan and are curved. Like a giant bay window, with view that can be see through the window and views of the sea. Blind arcades supporting the podium. No more slit windows.

The preeminent example of the Second Style painting is between two cubicula. (60BC-50BC) Done entirely in paint. Painted Columns project out of the wall. The first style wall is dropped down. Above it is a shrine with a blue sky vista. There is nothing like Second Style Painting anywhere else other than Rome

House of the Large Fountain

Has large fountain with mosaics

House of the Samnite

This is in Herculaneum. Painted in First Style

House of the Griffins

This is in Rome. It is painted in First Style (Room 1) but also Second Style in Room 2 . The Plinth is painted like a low wall. Above that painted columns sitting on a plinth. It gives a sense of depth with a First Style painting behind.

Villa of Poppaea

Third Style Wall Painting dispenses with perspectives. Images seem to float rather than occupy a space. Where there is a vista or view painted on the wall it is meant to be seen as a picture painted on the wall rather than a opening out on the world. The pictures have black frames and dispense with elaborate painted projected columns. Third Style seeks to retain the integrity of the wall rather than create an illusion. Red colors are still prevalent and the socle is still present. It is not the same as First Style as it is not a relief or an illusion of marble walls etc

Villa of Titus Siminius Stephanus

Plato's Academy mosaic from Pompeii

House of the Golden Bracelet

Single continuous fresco from the House of the Golden Bracelet, Pompeii

House of Julius Polybius

This house was relatively large, covering c. 700 m2 and belonging to Wallace-Hadrill's Quartile 4. It has two entrances from the north side of the Via dell'Abbondanza, leading to two separate front hall areas and two distinct parts of the house. The seal of C. Julius Phillippus found in garden CC and graffito with his name in hall N have been used to suggest he may have been the last resident and that he had been a freedman of C. Julius Polybius, also a freedman.

Many of the rooms in the front house and around hall, which had once been lavishly decorated, mainly in the First and Second Styles but some in the Third or Fourth (for example, room Y), appear to have been subsequently downgraded, covered with coarse white plaster, and used for commercial/industrial activities. The rooms along the east side of hall had been converted for storage, predominantly for amphorae and their contents. The contrast between fine furniture and coarsely decorated rooms might be indicative of the suggestion that the house had been occupied by a freedman for industrial/commercial makes for a somewhat makeshift occupancy.

Pompei - House of Iulius Polybius - Lararium

His bakeries had made him wealthy and he was very active in society. At the time of the eruption he was candidate for political office. In an example of the public and private spheres of a single family, excavation of his house in the town centre found skeletons of 13 people one of which was pregnant. DNA analysis suggests they belonged to the same family.

We know of Julius Polybius’ bid for office because of the graffiti found near his house

The muleteers urge the election of Gaius Julius Polybius as duovir

Or

I ask you to elect Gaius Julius Polybius aedile. He gets good bread.

The two graffiti give clues to the well developed structure of Pompeian society:

They tell us about Julius Polybius the nouveau riche baker who had aspired to being elected aedile and duovir (presumably at different times),the fact that they are written at all suggests that the broader population actively participated and made a difference in such elections, they tell us that there was obviously an open choice of breads and lastly, there were recognised social groups with which people could readily associate themselves, in this case the group being the muleteers.

Commentary

The social status and aspirations of Pompeians was reflected in size and layout of the property. The type of rooms included – vestibule, courtyard, peristyle, apartments, room(s) to conduct business and/or trade. The most important ways of achieving this was the size of rooms; situation of rooms; the possibility to separate public and private spaces; size/number of room used for business dealings and artwork and decoration of the rooms.

Modern conveniences for the time also reflected status. Heated floors in the baths and evidence of extensive servant quarters. Gardens with flowing water features were also signifiers of wealthier occupants. The House of the Vetti features large basins, fountains and statuettes. Homes of socially aspiring families were smaller in scale but featured many of the same aspects of the larger homes such as the House of the Priest Amandus.

Big rooms decorated with mosaic, frescoes, bronze and golden statues to show of wealth. The house of Faun was the biggest and had fauces of 16 m, the biggest in Pompeii with a fountain with a bronze statue. It also had magnificent mosaic of Alejandro.This is contrast to the poky size of the servant quarters in the house that its hard to believe its the same house


Pompeians had a different use for their houses than we do in the 21st Century. For us it’s a place to get away from things but for the Pompeians it was where they conducted their business and entertained as well as being a family dwelling. There were public and private parts of the house. The size of the house, the decoration and ornaments were all good indicators to fellow Romans of the status of the family they were dealing with.

As houses developed their usage changed. The tablinum which was once a bedroom was opened up and became an office or archive room. The wealthy Pompeians augmented their houses with a large peristyle. The Triclinium and sometimes there might be two were placed to look over the peristyle and take full advantage of the light coming in. As we have already seen they would have painted their houses using a faux relief First Style or increasingly artistic or intricate Second, Third or Fourth Style wall paintings. The House of the Faun seems to take this one step further by incorporating wall paintings with mosaics. There are various depictions of cats and partridges, ducks, hippopotamus, etc and the Alexander the Great mosaic with 1 million tessellations. What is more, these decorations both wall painting and mosaic would have almost impossible to copy so exclusivity was ensured.

Over time housed were re-modeled such as the House of the Vestals. The House was substantially rebuilt in the AD 20's to put in piped water - fairly recently supplied to the town by aqueduct - for which, apparently, residents had to have influence to obtain and a great indication of status.

Personal tools
Namespaces

Variants
Actions
Navigation
Toolbox