1. The Decorative
System of the Walls

Before they appeared in the market, the fragmentary remains of the walls had been assembled into rectangular aggregations, and the trimmed-off portions discarded. The position and spacing of these rectangular sections therefore becomes in part a matter of conjecture, and an effort will be made to set forth in details the basis of the reconstructions [pls. 1-3, 10-12, 23, 24].

The reconstructions, ie. the placing of the extant fragments and the restoration of what is missing are derived in the main from two sources, first, the descriptions by Della Corte, and second, the internal evidence of the paintings.

The first source gives a rough plan of the villa, with a metre scale, which afford the approximate size of each wall, except for the ceiling height, and a description in general terms of the several rooms. The second, internal, source gives intimations as to which wall--north, east, or west--a particular fragment comes from, and whether this fragment was to the right of center or to the left.

To enlarge upon this last observation: the cubicula in question were built in a rank running east and west, and facing south toward the downward slope of the mountain. The source of light in each room was a wide south doorway; in no instance has any of the painted surround of this doorway been preserved. Throughout all of the decoration, the artist has consistently represented the shadows as falling toward the right or toward the left. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that he followed the general practice and painted each wall according to the light in which it was actually seen, that is to say, in this series of cubicula an east wall has its shadows falling toward the spectator's left; a west wall is shadowed toward the right; on a north wall the shadows fall left and right from center. This principle has been used for placing each fragment on its proper wall. In addition, the painter has here and there throughout the decoration shown three-dimensional objects in perspective. Keeping the center of the room as the point of sight, the fragments have been placed with the lines of sight diverging right and left from center, as they appeared in perspective to the beholder in this central stance.

When all the elements have been arranged on the walls according to this scheme, it is seen that the east and west walls, wherever both are preserved, reproduce each other mirror-fashion. The missing portions have therefore been restored, the east from the west and vice versa, mirror-fashion.

These principles are in some cases supported by Della Corte's description, and in no instance do they contradict it. For the sake of brevity, placements made in accordance with them are referred to in the following remarks as certainties. In no case has a corner of a room [where two walls meet, or where wall meets ceiling] been preserved, and no guesses have been made as to the decoration in these regions.

To recapitulate: the relative positions in which the decorative elements are placed can be regarded as sure, the spacing between them is conjectural. [p. 13]

Cubiculum No. 15.
A black room, with a narrow west doorway in addition to the south entrance. Floor space circa 15 ft. 6 in. by 17 ft. 8 in. [4.7 by 5.4 m]. Height as preserved, 7 ft 190 in. [2.38 m].

Della Corte describes this room as black over a dark red dado, with a central aedicula containing a small, frameless landscape on each wall. The east and west walls have tripods at the sides. There are yellow tablets, he says, with Egyptianizing scenes. In his figure 9, two such tablets are shown left and right reversed, but identified by their breaks as those on the north wall. [p. 13]

The north wall, in three not contiguous sections, is preserved to about half of its original width. The dado, which presumably ran around the room, is preserved only here; it is dark purplish red with a pattern of white lines touched up with yellow rosettes and dots; there is a white band at the top of it, with lotiform ornaments at the structural intervals. This dado is conceived as the three-dimensional base on which rest the columns of the architectural schemes; its top, that is, the floor of the colonnade, is painted green. From it rises the central pavilion [ pl. 4], framing the miniature landscape [pl. 29. A]. The pavilion, unlike those of the side walls, has a gabled roof; this rests on the two front columns, which pass across the horizontal cornice, casting their shadows on it. The two rear columns, seen in diminished perspective, carry this cornice only. Above the capitals of each of the two main columns is a medallion with a portrait face in profile. The two seem to be generalized likenesses of the same man, and have the look of the Julio-Claudian house, but the long bond hair does not suggest Augustus; they might allude to Agrippa [ pl. B].

On each side of the central aedicula is a rounded niche [pl. 5, 1. 2]; with a rectangular offset. The cornice continues across the curve of the niche, but the pattern on it shifts to spirals. Within stands a candelabrum with brackets on which are swans holding a fillet in their beaks like those in the acanthus scrolls of the Ara Pacis. The finial [pl. 6] is a vase which serves as a support for a yellow rectangular tablet with an Egyptianizing scene.[2]

When the existing elements of the east and west walls are put in position, the fragment of a cornice [pl. 7] being placed over two pairs of columns [pl. 8, 1], Della Corte's aediculae emerge, and four of the five existing units such as the one in pl. 3 are seen to confront each other in pairs, mirror-fashion, from opposite walls. For the fifth existing unit, therefore, a mirror-image has been restored, making six, and for symmetry a seventh, opposite the west doorway, has been added. The cornice has been stretched by the reduplication of a beam-end on each side, to match the number on the north wall. In like manner the two tripods [cf. pl. 8, 2], which stand diagonally opposite each other, have been supplied with their mirror-images. The dado preserved on the north wall has been copied for the two side walls. The spacing between the preserved sections is arbitrary, there being no guide to it other than the known limits of the walls.

The narrow band of this cornice appears also on the column elements [cf. pl. 8, 1] and is taken to be continuous across the top of the two central aediculae. Below it are the beam-ends and a central ornament, above it, at the corners, are vases holding tall twigs, one of which is preserved to its full height; between these are scrolls surmounted by confronted griffins, also only partly preserved. The two side elements, or wings, of each aedicula are surmounted by a broader cornice; at the corners, [p. 14] placed like acroteria, are parakeets [pl. 9]. The top of this broad cornice is continued in a single line, preserved in one place on a column element and visible also on the tripods [pl. 8, 2], which has been carried continuously across the two side walls; this is at teh same height as the cornice of the north wall, which it may have met in the corners of the room. The columns are metallic in style, with composite capitals, and are interrupted throughout their height with ornaments, from which small chains are hung.

Cubiculum No. 16
A red room with landscapes on white ground. There are two narrow doorways in addition to the south portal. Floor space circa 15 ft. 6 in. by 17 ft. 8 in. [4.6 by 5.4 m]. Height as preserved circa 9 ft. 10 in [3m].

The remains of this room, as follows, are in the Museum at Naples. The north wall, to about two thirds of its width; of the east wall, the central and the left-hand panel; of the west, the central and the right-hand panel. When allowance is made for the two doorways, it will be seen that much of the decoration is preserved [Restoration pl. 10].

Della Corte describes this room as red over a black dado, with landscapes on white ground.

In the restoration of the north wall [pl. 11] the columns of the two side panels have been reduplicated and the cornice and plinth carried clear across. The former does not accurately meet those of the side walls [cf. Della Corte's fig. 11].

The east and west walls [pl. 12] have been reconstructed by first centering the landscape, and then again centering the existing red side panels [arbitrarily], between the landscape and the corner of the room. These two red panels then confront each other across the north end of the cubiculum. At the south end another pair of confronting panels, each pierced by a narrow doorway, have been restored, and the higher of the two cornices, of which a vestige is preserved [pl. 21, 1.2], has been carried across.

This is the best preserved of the cubicula. Although it contrasts richly with the sober elegance of the Black Room next door, the two rooms have certain features in common. The black dado, a three-dimensional plinth for the decorative system, is marked of with white lines, vertical and horizontal. Below the landscapes it has, on the north, a heap of figs [pl. 17, 1], on the east and west growing plants [pl. 17, 2], their trailing stems bound up with strings. Above these central ornaments stand the three easels for the landscapes [pls 18, 1, 2. C. 19, 1-5]. They are drawn in depth, like pavilions, with elaborately banded Ionic columns in front sporting a horizontal cornice, and square pillars at the back.

The structure of the north wall resembles that of the side walls in the adjoining Black Room, having a central aedicula with a lower wing on each side, but here the aedicula, i.e. the easel, has an attic above the picture [pl. 13]. Two ibises stand on the easel in the position of acroteria [pls. 14. 15], one of them stretching its neck downward, the other scratching its beak with its foot. Flanking this central structure, left and right, are two more panels, bounded by square columns with Ionic capitals which [p. 15] support cornices at a higher level. The superstructure of the wall consists of uprights twined with plants. On two of these is a box-like bracket holding two theatrical masks [ pl. 16].

The easels on the west [ pl. 12] and east walls are flanked by wide red panels. Each panel has a central upright on which is mounted a mask [pl. 21, 1.22, 1.2]. Square columns support a heavy cornice, and extend upward to a narrower band, forming an attic in which stand two confronting trellises. Each trellis has a hawk and a stemmed cup placed like acroteria, and mounted on one of the verticals of each trellis is a tablet with a griffin [pl. 20].

Cubiculum No. 19.
A room with mythological landscape and red panels. Floor space circa 10 ft. 6 in. by 17 ft. 8 in. [3.2 by 5.4 m]. The south doorway is narrower than in the other rooms, but the western door is wider, being nearly four feet in width.

Della Corte describes the room as much damaged by the eruption, with only fragments of the east and west walls preserved. He saw a white surround for the landscapes, but no trace of white has been preserved.

The surviving fragments of this cubiculum, all of them in New York, are: The two large landscapes [Pl. 40. D. 44]; a large red panel [pl. 26] wrongly assembled, of which the lower part is from the east wall, and the upper part, with most of the yellow frieze, is from the west, where it passed over the doorway; the central candelabrum from a similar red panel, also from the west wall; a fragment of a yellow frieze supporting a trellis [pl. 25].

The reconstruction of this room is conjectural [pl. 23. 24], and needs a detailed apology. The two landscapes are of course centered on the walls, but the restoration of easels from them has no excuse except analogy with the Red Room, and remains of stripes which might be the uprights. Remains of three red panels, one of them wrongly assembled as on pl. 26, can be placed one on the east wall and two on the west. One of the latter had the four-foot doorway cut in it. A fourth panel has been supplied in the reconstruction, and space has been left around the landscapes for the white surround that Della Corte saw.

Thus the horizontal arrangement of the two walls is approximately right, but the vertical scheme is in doubt. The broad frieze on the side panel [pl. 26] resembles the one below the trellis [ pl. 25], but they can hardly be made continuous, or they differ slightly in dimensions and the tablets cannot be made to form a logical sequence. Furthermore, the landscape would be crowded for vertical space, if this frieze were carried right across them; and the richly banded column, preserved only once at the right-hand side of the panel in pl. 26, has a banded decorative scheme which repeats itself in a logical diminuendo from the plinth upward. To end the column at the base of the frieze is to interrupt this rhythmical scheme. If the column, however, is carried to the top of the frieze [crossing in front of it like those on the north wall of the Black Room on pl. 4], and supplied with a capital, the decoration will exactly scan. This has therefore been done, and the trellis [pl. 25] has been reduplicated [p. 16] and placed above this column. No conjecture is made as to the rest of the superstructure. The dado is nowhere preserved, but it has been restored as low, so as not to raise the landscapes unduly.

In the center of each red panel is a metallic thymiaterion; its decoration includes a pair of Sirens, and swags passing across to the side columns [pl. 26]. In the yellow frieze are square and octagonal tablets with comic masks--one mask is preserved [pl. 27, 2]--, griffins [ pl. 27, 3] and an Egyptianizing divinity [pl. 27. 1]. In the frieze under the trellis [pl. 25] the tablets have an Egyptian figure [possibly Sobk, misunderstood] and a long-tailed bird.

Cubiculum No. 20 was only partly explored, and was much damaged by the eruption. Della Corte saw remains of central aediculae from the three walls, with fragments of landscapes, and ornament in metallic style: twigs, leaves, flowers, and birds, on white ground.

The two candelabra [pl. 28, 1.2] must be from this room. They are not the white surround that Della Corte mentioned for the Polyphemus and the Perseus landscapes for they cannot be made to fit the walls. One of the sections [ pl. 28, 1] has the red dado and black plinth, nearly three feet high, on which stands the lower part of a candelabrum with a vase at the highest preserved point. The other section, from the opposite wall, has some of the vase preserved at its lowest point; together they reach a height of nearly nine feet. [p. 17]

Notes
1. Fouilles exécutées par M. le Chev. Ernest Santini à Boscotrecase, endroit nommé "Rota" [1905]. Della Corte 459ff. C. Alexander, MetrMusSt. 1, 1929, 176ff.