#house of the vettii

[blueiscoool]

‘Ancient Roman’ Solar Roof Tiles Power Pompeii Villa

Ancient Roman ruins at Pompeii have been fitted with invisible solar panels, in a move that will contribute to the archaeological site’s sustainability efforts and cut costs. The innovative panels, which blend into the background by imitating traditional materials, were installed on the House of Cerere, on a thermopolium — a Roman snack bar — and on the House of the Vettii, which recently reopened following 20 years of restoration work.

“They look exactly like the terracotta tiles used by the Romans, but they produce the electricity that we need to light the frescoes,” said Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the director of the archaeological park of Pompeii, in a press release.

Each year, 3.5 million tourists explore the vast ruins of the ancient Roman city, which was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. But due to Pompeii’s size, energy bills are expensive and conventional methods of providing power across the site can threaten its appearance.

“Pompeii is an ancient city which in some spots is fully preserved,” Zuchtriegel said. “Since we needed an extensive lighting system, we could either keep consuming energy, leaving poles and cables around and disfiguring the landscape, or choose to respect it and save millions of euros.” The new technology will help the archaeological site to cut energy bills and make it more enjoyable, he added.

The invisible solar panels — or “traditional PV tiles” as they are technically known — were created by the Italian company Dyaqua. They can be designed to appear like stone, wood, concrete or brick, and hidden on walls, floors and roofs, according to Elisabetta Quagliato, whose family owns Dyaqua, in the press statement.

“We are an archaeological site but we also want to be a real-life lab for sustainability and the valorization of intangible heritage,” Zuchtriegel said. “Our initiative is not merely symbolic. Through the million tourists who visit us every year, we want to send a message to the world: cultural heritage can be managed differently and in a more sustainable way.”

Other locations in Italy using the invisible solar technology are the commune of Vicoforte in Italy and, soon, Rome’s contemporary art museum Maxxi. Public buildings in Evora, Portugal, and Split, Croatia will also install the panels, according to the press statement.

Pompeii’s recent use of these panels is just the beginning, Zuchtriegel said. “From now on, we will be taking this solution into account for all future renovation and restoration projects.”

By Garry Shaw.

[commiepinkofag]

"Buddies"

Located in the ancient city’s wealthy quarter, the sprawling House of the Vettii was owned by Aulus Vettius Restitutus and Aulus Vettius Conviva, who became rich by selling wine after being freed from slavery.

Theories in the past have suggested that the two men were brothers, but it is more likely that they met when enslaved and had the same master, whose name was Aulus Vettius, according to Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the director of Pompeii archaeological park.

“If they were from the same family the first two names would have been different and they would have the same surname,” he said. “It was uncommon to have biological siblings who were slaves and then set free, because family ties were cut with slavery so it’s very unlikely they were brothers. It’s more likely that they were buddies during their time as slaves and then set free.”

[postcard-from-the-past]

House of the Vettii in Pompei, Campania region of Italy

Italian vintage postcard

[neapolis-neapolis]

Casa dei Vettii (I sec. a.C. - I sec.), Parco Archeologico di Pompei, Napoli.

[tsubasaclones]

the teacher told us to not wait until last minute to do this project because it takes time, which is why i waited until last minute and crammed all the work into 2 days <3

[blueiscoool]

House of the Vettii

Pompeii home owned by former slaves reopens.

The House of the Vettii, known as Pompeii's Sistine Chapel, has reopened to the public for the first time in 20 years after an extensive restoration.

The house, built in the second century BC, was buried in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79.

It was named after its owners, the Vettii brothers, two former slaves.

Aulus Vettius Conviva and Aulus Vettius Restitutus got wealthy by selling wine after they were freed.

Adorned in mythological frescos and phallic sculptures, the house reopened on Tuesday after years of restoration work.

Excavation works carried out between late 1894 and early 1896 showed that the ancient Roman townhouse, built on top of the ruins of an earlier house, had survived the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

"The owners, freedmen and ex-slaves, are the expression of a social mobility that would have been unthinkable two centuries earlier," said Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii.

He added that the brothers became rich by trading agricultural products from the surrounding area in Pompeii - but added that prostitution was also practiced in their house.

In the house, the Greek god of fertility and abundance, Priapus, is depicted in a fresco weighing his own phallus against a bag of money.

Ornate furnishings inside the house, as well as Greek and Roman sculptures in bronze and marble, offer a glimpse into the lifestyle of the elite.

[ancientrome]

Erotic fresco at the House of the Vettii in Pompeii.

[flaroh]

Buried 🌋🙇🏻‍♀️🕊️

Aprils work is Pompeii themed, inspired by photos I took in the House of the Vettii. The illustration is named Buried and is of the remains of the villa’s north courtyard, bathed in streaming morning light, with a mysterious occupant. Even though this scene is modern day, the girl is in Roman dress looking at the viewer. And oh what’s that? She’s slightly transparent...👻

[p0rnpolitik]

https://theconversation.com/pompeiis-house-of-the-vettii-reopens-a-reminder-that-roman-sexuality-was-far-more-complex-than-simply-gay-or-straight-197978

https://theconversation.com/pompeiis-house-of-the-vettii-reopens-a-reminder-that-roman-sexuality-was-far-more-complex-than-simply-gay-or-straight-197978

[shisasan]

The House of Vettii frescoes, Pompeii 79AD

[sarafangirlart]

This has got to be one of my favorite frescoes of Perseus and Andromeda, they way they have their arms over each other, Andromeda sitting on his lap as they fly and lifting her veil in an almost cutesy manner.

From House of the Vettii

[leafyhistory]

In Ancient Rome, snakes were not feared and hated to the same degree that they are today. Every household had a shrine - the lararium where the spirit of the household (the genius) lived with the household's guardians (the lares). The genius was often represented in artwork as a snake, and snakes also often represented the spirits of ancestors and sometimes (more figuratively) their immortality in the afterlife.

Image - Lararium in the House of the Vettii in Pompeii, photo by Patricio Lorente (licence CC BY-SA 2.5)

[lionofchaeronea]

The punishment of Ixion for his attempted rape of Juno. At the far left, Vulcan binds Ixion to the wheel upon which he will turn for eternity. In the center, Mercury, holding his caduceus, stands with Nephele ("Cloud") at his feet. At the right, Juno, attended by Iris, looks on. Fresco in the Fourth Style from the eastern wall of the triclinium in the House of the Vettii (VI.15.1), Pompeii.

[blueiscoool]

The House of the Vettii in Pompeii Reopens

The House of the Vettii, one of the largest and richest homes in Pompeii, prodigiously endowed with a fresco of Priapus that has become an icon of the city, reopens to the public on Tuesday after years of complex restoration.

The House of the Vettii was the home of Aulus Vettius Restitutus and Aulus Vettius Conviva, freedmen brothers who made a fortune as wine merchants and ascended the social ladder. Restitutus was a candidate for aedile, a magistrate responsible for holding public games and the maintenance of public buildings. Conviva was an Augustalis, a priest of the cult of the deified Augustus, a position of civic importance that was more akin to a magistracy. In this role he would have funded major public works projects.

The Vettii bought the house, originally built in the 2nd century B.C., after the earthquake of 62 A.D. It was in a tony neighborhood that many of the wealthy homeowners had left rather than rebuild. When the rich moved out, the nouveau-riche moved in. Freedmen who had made big bucks in trade like the Vettii were a prime example of the trend. They bought the aristocratic villa, repaired it and expanded it, adding a huge peristyle garden with statues and fountains. Every room was lavishly painted with frescoes on mythological motifs, telegraphing their wealth and the new status it bought them. Priapus, his massive phallus balancing on a scale against a bag of money, welcomed visitors in the vestibule of the house. Two large bronze strongboxes were placed in the atrium so everyone who got past Priapus would be confronted with the the most literal possible representation of the wealth of the Vettii.

The frescoes are mostly in the Pompeiian Fourth style, a combination of the previous three styles (faux marble veneers from the first, architectural trompe l’oeil from the second, ornate, stylized ornament from the third). The Vettii frescoes provide unique insight into the transition between the Third and Fourth style of mural painting. There is also a remarkable series of striking black and red frescoes depicting groups of cupids performing a variety of tasks, mythological ones like celebrating a festival of Bacchus and a festival of Vesta, sure, but of particular note are the representations of daily work, including the gathering and pressing of grapes, buying and selling the wine, dyeing and cleaning clothes in a fullery, picking flowers and making garlands for sale, making perfumed oil and making coins. The cupids are also captured at leisure, hunting on goat-back, racing in chariots pulled by deer and taking part in an archery contest.

The room adjacent to the kitchen was painted with a series of explicit erotic frescoes. It may have been a visual menu of options offered by an enslaved prostitute Eutychis who advertises her services for two asses (plural of as, the lowest-value Roman coin) on a graffito at the entrance of the house.

The domus was first excavated between late 1894 and early 1896. In the 1950s reinforced concrete roofs were added to the peristyle to protect the architectural remains from the elements. It was no longer protecting it, however. On the contrary, the flat concrete roof was unsound and directly contributing to water infiltration and damage.

Already affected by works in 1995, when the problem created by the concrete roofs of the 50s was evident, the house was partially reopened in 2016, after 12 years of closure and then closed again after 3 years for further restoration. Interventions that involved the roofing but also the paintings, with the removal of the patina created by previous restorations.

The old concrete roofs have now been replaced with sloped roofs formed from hollow blocks on metal frameworks. The wooden roofs added in the 1990s are still functional but needed refurbishment, and a new rainwater drainage system was devised to integrate the new roofs with the existing drainage system.

Conservators also cleaned and conserved the wall and floor decorations and the fixtures of the garden. It was a painstaking process of cleaning, regrouting and integrating interventions from different periods with the aim of recovering the legibility of the images and colors.

[ancientrome]

House of the Vettii in Pompeii.