LEIS

&L .
IN THE AGE OF NERO
THE VILLAS OF OPLONTIS NEAR POMPEII

EDITED BY

ELAINE K. GAZDA
AND JOHN R. CLARKE

WITH TH[ ASSISTANCE or

LYNLEY j. McALPINE

KELSEY MUSEUM PUBLICATION 14

ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN 2016
Ministero dci Bcni e delle Anivita Culturali e del Turismo
Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di
Pompei, Ercolano c Stabia
Oplontis Project, University ofTexas
Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan

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2.27, 2.28, 3·5· 3.n, 4·2-4·7· 4·9-·P2, 5·2-5·4· 56-5.8, 6.3, 74·
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C Kelsey Museum of Archaeology 2016

REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

J. Bchm, Grand Bbnc; Bernstein, Ann Arbor;
Laurence B. Deitch, Bloomfield Hills; Shnuna Ryder Dij;brs, Grone
Pointe; Denise Ilitch, Bingham Farms; Andrea Fischer Newman, Ann
Arbor; Andrew C. Richner, Grosse Pointe Park; Katherine E. \Vhitc,
Ann Arbor; MarkS. Schlisscl (txoJ!im)
CHAPTER 9 THE GARDENS AND
GARDEN PAINTINGS OF VILLA A
BEITINA BERGMANN
Illusionistic gardens are among the most dazzling
frescoes to survive in Roman houses and villas, where
they often appeared as life-size, scenic backdrops for
living gardens. A blue sky, bushes, flowers, and flutter-
ing birds optically extended a planted green space, while
painted illusions of marble statues and state-of-the-art
waterworks upstaged the three-dimensional counterparts
before them. Such lively ensembles could be seen from
various vantage points within a residence. A few interior
rooms even entirely simulated the outdoors.
Archaeological evidence for the actual greenery,
statuary, fountains, and furniture of such settings is slim.
Villa A at Oplontis offers a rare opportunity to consider
some of the finest examples of garden paintings within
a fuUy designed villa landscape (sec plan). Beginning
in 1979, WilhelminaJashemski unearthed remains of
extensive landscaping immediately around the building
and, beyond those gardens, even signs of farming as weU.
Altogethcr,Jashcmski found thirteen interior and exte-
rior gardens, an unprecedented number for a single villa
complex, and these do not account for any planted areas
stiU buried in the west wing. What is more, the types of
many trees and bushes can be identified from the plaster
casts of roots, carbonized remains, and soil analysis, al-
lowing one to visualize the design. Geometrical rows of
prominent shade trees, flowering oleanders, and clipped
box hedges outlined the building's perimeter, creating a
kind of"grccn architccture."Trces introduced shade in
Htada imagf: Vi=from north gardm through atrium axU. Rmdt ring:
I.
96
interior gardens, whose walls imitated plants, bubbling
fountains, and birds. Thanks to the wealth of remains, we
can imagine that architect, landscape designer (topiarius),
and wall-painting workshop operated in dialogue with
one another, for the diverse media share not only a com-
mon vocabulary of plants, water features, wildlife, and
statuary but also a set of spatial principles.'
Traces of illusionistic garden paintings survive
in two areas of the, viUa: in the unroofed viridarium, or
interior garden (:zo), that lies on axis with the atrium (s)
at the center of the west wing and in a series of small
garden courtyards running north-south along the west
colonnade of the pool in the cast wing (rooms 68- 87).l
These murals were painted in the mid- first century AD,
evidently by one workshop, and have close parallels at
other Campanian sites. But although the painters at Villa
A may have employed common schemes and motifs,
the color combinations, the unusually detailed render-
ing of pictorial clements, and above all, the location of
the frescoes within such an extensive, landscaped estate
distinguish these from all the rcst.3
The foUowing brief account of the murals in the
atrium area and the cast wing considers both the frescoes
and the features of actual gardens that they depict. (Sec
also Thomas, chapter 7• in this volume.)
VIRIDARIUM 20
The open square space at the heart of the older part of
the villa lies on the main axis of the formal garden from
the north, through the atrium and to the sea to the south
(see header image). It was a refreshing space, a viridari-
um, where fruit trees grew in three corners and a round
marble basin in the center once gushed water. That basin
may have been surrounded by the impressive centaur
statues found stored in the portico of the north garden
{JJ). • This was a diaphanous space that introduced light
and air into the building and, above all, linked contrast-
ing scenes-a green garden to the north and blue water
to the south-making the structure seem to breathe and
become an interconnected, organic part of the wider
living environment. The capacity of a villa to incorporate
such antithetical landscapes into its architecture was
much lauded by homeowners. 5
In addition to framing views of the outside, the
walls of the viridarium offered eight fictive, painted pros-
pects (fig. 9.r). All four walls had a tripartite composition:
on the south three wide openings between columns, on
the north a central window that may have been flanked by
simulated painted views, and on each of the solid east and
west walls three illusionistic gardens. Now fuded almost be-
yond recognition, the frescoes were fortunately recorded in
r967 in photographs and a detailed dra\ving, which served
as the basis for a recent reconstruction by Paolo Baronio.l•
SYMMETRY
These murals typifY the reigning principle of symmetry in
the design of Villa A. The foreground architecture-a low
wall (pluteus), columns, and horizontal superstructure of
moldings and bands (entablature)-serves to demarcate
the boundary between the living and depicted gardens; it
also divides the three painted walls into a central vista and
two flanking panels. The fictive columns support a stucco
frieze displaying hunt scenes and seahorses swimming
with dolphins, below which myrtle garlands on a yellow
ground frame the oblong garden vistas. At the top of each
panel a Silenus mask marks the center and, at the bottom,
thick branches drape over a low wall painted with red and
black squares. In front of this barrier, which also serves as
a base for the garden fountain, arc regularly spaced, flow-
ering plants (ivy and iris among them) and flittering birds.
At the point where wall meets ground, a wide, deep gutter
blurs real and fictive, seeming to collect overflow from the
splashing marble fountains painted on the walls.
Looking more closely at the paintings on the
east and west walls, we see that each of the three sections
focuses on an elaborate marble fountain composed of
several parts: in the side panels a square, shallow basin
with animal heads projecting from its corners is support-
ed by a slender, leafY column, which in turn stands atop
an animated creature (fig. 9.2). Bet\vecn the red panels,
the central prospect offers a contrast: a blue-green sky
and larger fountain of different shape. Here a marble vase
(a crater), carved with delicate handles and projecting
GARDENS AND GAIWEN PAINTINGS
features of a female head (a gorgon?) and sea creatures,
stands on a square base between oleander bushes and
directly before a pruned, leafless tree around whose trunk
wraps a spiraling, climbing vine, an image repeated in the
ivy-entwined column in the foreground (fig. 9.3).
VARIATIONS AND REVERSALS
Initially, the east and west walls appear to be mirror com-
positions, but like the popular modern challenge, "spot the
difference," the more one looks, the more discrepancies
come to light. For example, in the central panel of the
east wall there is no vine winding around the barren tree
and two birds alight on the crater, while only bird one
does so on the west. 7 In the left panel, the statue appears
from behind (in the reconstruction it appears to have
lost its wings), while its pendant, a sphinx, sits frontally,
wings splayed, with one hand apparently raised to its
head. Each figure is different, but all look and lean toward
the central panel, reinforcing the symmetry of the wall.
Not just recognizable objects but abstract color patterns
enliven the areas contained within the strict, geometrical
grid. Lively rotations of red, yellow, and black color fields
are everywhere to be seen, from the backgrounds of the
panels to the bottom of the columns and the low walls.
The actual, built wall on the south is black, while the fic-
tive ones on the side walls arc red in the center and black
on the sides; this is reversed on the north wall, where
the low wall is black in the center and red on the sides.
Even if such variations were perceived less consciously,
one result of the oscillation is that real, three-dimensional
clements merge with two-dimensional, fictive ones; the
lower of columns and panels, for instance, form one
continuous surface. Color also creates a dynamic interplay
of projecting and receding zones that may either heighten
or contradict the wall's linear perspective. For example, the
fountains in the side panels arc shown at angles that place
the observer directly in the middle, directly in front of the
fictive central fountain, and this vantage point is empha-
sized by the blue-green color field that recedes bct\vcen
the projecting red panels left and right.
There is another significant reversal on the
north wall.R In this case the window provides the "central
panel" looking onto an orderly layout of cultivated foliage
and white marble (at one time perhaps centaurs). What
better demonstration of the Roman predilection for the
artful confusion bct\veen actual views and painted ones?
Excavations in the north garden revealed two sym-
metrical, diagonal paths converging with a middle path
on the building's main north-south a.xis at a point (still
unexcavated) that must have been marked by a promi-
nent object, maybe a marble crater (sec plan). A visitor at
that end point facing the villa could see over a seemingly
enormous distance, his or her cone of vision defined by
the diverging, diagonal green borders and the line of sight
1)7
 8 D

B D

c
Fig. 9.1: ofmomtructtd wa/!J ofroom 20. Dmwingr Pao/ti Top plan: Victoria I and]amcJ Stanton-Abbott.
Fig. 9.:z: Drtail ofsphinxfountain, wall, room :10. Fig. 9.3: Detail oferoltrfountain, west wall, room :zo. Photo: Stanley jashtmsl:.i.
Photo:

directed by columns and walls through interior dark and

light spaces straight out to the sea, seen in the view re-
constructed by Victoria I in the header image that opens
this chapter. To the eye, this penetrating view through the
complex appears to be absolutely straight, but the founda-
tions and site plans show that in fact the axis shifts in the
area between the viridarium (20) and the atrium (s), mak-
ing that distance seem greater (see fig. 9.4).

VISUAL CONNECTIONS
If we consider the painted viridarium within its archi·
tectural context, it becomes clear how the vertical axes
of the central pictures on the cast and west walls inter-
sected with the views seen through real architecture on
the north and south. The four coordinates crossed in the
center of the viridarium where the marble basin once
stood-one sign of the paramount role of waterworks in
garden views. Indeed, within this small space there ap·
pearcd no fewer than eight images of fountains, reflect·
ing, at least thematically, the original arrangement inside
the viridarium and possibly the north garden as well. Just
such a display could be seen in the east wing of the villa,
where a marble crater carved with dancing figures formed
- -
17
the centerpiece of views from several spots. It is just one
example of the lively visual cross-referencing that we find 5
throughout the villa (fig. 9·5).9 22
Viridarium 20 is, in fact, a showcase for such
cross-referencing, not just among its own four walls but
with other interior and exterior spaces of the villa. The
23
most obvious example is the simulated architecture. The
painted, engaged columns with yellow and white shafts
match the freestanding columns on the south side of
Fig. 9·4: Plan with visual axis through room :zo marked. Adapudfrom plan
the viridarium and also those of the colonnaded portico hy Victoria I Stllnton·Abbott.

GARDENS AND GARDEN PAINTINGS 99

 surrounding the of the villa on the north (33-34).
That portico was painted with red and yellow panels with
white "windows" between them, a paratactic design in
sync with the rhythm of the columns. Standing in the
north garden and looking at the of the villa, a
viewer might easily confuse the identical, two- and three-
dimensional columns and connect the alternating red and
yellow color fields of the portico, viridarium, and further
spaces inside. 10 An especially remarkable instance of
visual echoing in the villa is the image of the painted vine
winding around tree trunks and column shafts, for these
had living parallels in portico 40, where Jashemski found
flowerpots and roots of climbing ornamentals (clema-
tis, honeysuckle, or ivy) that were trained to scale the
columns.U A resident or visitor encountering this topiary
conceit in varied materials and locations saw not just art
imitating nature but multimedia expressions of a precious
form of cultivation.

VISION VERSUS MOVEMENT

This viridarium was a space to be seen but not entered.
The low surrounding wall between the columns on the
south prevented direct physical access, so that a person
Fig. 9.5: at south tnd ofpool. Photo: must circumvent the open space through dark, tunnel-
like corridors, losing views of the seafront on one end
and the garden at the other, only to gain them again from

Fig. 9.6: Suond wall, grand saloii!J. Photo: Paul Bardagjy.

100 BETTINA BERGMANN


altered perspectives (see plan). The primacy of viewing
through overlapping, framed planes is manifest through-
out the villa, most conspicuously in the earlier Second
Style frescoes of the richly decorated suite of smaller
rooms to the west of the atrium. The fictive architecture
in these interiors effectively replaces the actual space
of the room, so that real doors align with fictive open-
ings. For example, a large door in the so-called grand
salon (oecm 15) opens onto a small courtyard (16) with a
circular pool in which concentric rows of potted plants
surrounded a jetting fountain. Another door on the cast
wall breaks the architectural illusion to lead into the
next room (triclinium 14), allowing glimpses into more
painted places filled with sunlight, gleaming marble, and
gold. The views arc framed by columns, and a high base
or cultic objects in the foreground block access into the
spacious, blue and green retreats filled with trees and
water, just as the openings into viridarium 20 serve as
picrure windows not to be traversed (fig. 9.6}. u For the
modern viewer, who is separated from the visual goal by
successive layers of architccrural illusion and who regards
but cannot enter the ideal arena, the experience is one of
tension between sensations of access and denial. (Sec also
Gee, chapter 8, in this volume.)
Seeing such repeated, framed prospects along
a visual axis, whether through rooms or illusionistic
GARDENS AND GARDE N PAINTINGS
Fig. 9.7: Viewf rom room 68north
through rooms 69 and 70. Photo:
author.
prospects, must have created for the viewer a continu-
ous spatial and visual experience. Designers, it seems,
envisaged an active role on the part of a spectator, who
in moving through space would recognize recurrent
themes• or alternative versions of an image and at once
be awed by the craftsman's or gardener's virruosity and
prompted to remember a similar yet different example,
if subliminally.
THE GARDEN ROOM ENFILADE OF THE
EAST WING
The other main area of the villa, the recreational cast
wing, was built in a later phase (sec Thomas, chapter 7, in
this volume), and here the spatial strategies observed in
the earlier part of the villa were used to spectacular ef-
fect, particularly in the unique series of miniature garden
rooms running parallel to the pool, four of which display
garden frescoes painted by the same workshop as that of
viridarium 20. Again, the north and south walls of the
small rooms arc puncrurcd by large openings so that the
eye travels through built architecrurc into open, unroofed
spaces, where fictive windows-painted yellow fields
that compete with the real windows-lead into yet more
imaginary open spaces (fig. 9.7). Overlapping planes
11)1
 simultaneously convey depth and blur zones of indoors
and outdoors, enclosure and exposure, and the qualities
of different materials. Seen in mottled, shifting light and
shadow, still today what is real and where things exist in
relation to each other pose an optical challenge, and liv-
ing plants within the enclosures must have amplified the
visual interplay.13
With only windows and no doors, these small
garden courtyards, like viridarium 20, were made for
looking. In order for a person to travel the distance that
the eye could see from north to south or from south
to north, he or she must walk along a narrow passage
between the painted garden rooms and the portico along
the pool (6o) (fig. 9.8). That moving observer was of-
fered enticing views: to one side, the eye glimpsed either
elegant rooms faced with marble and statues in niches
(65, 69, 74) or painted, luminescent gardens (68, 70, 87);
to the other side (92) were living tableaux composed of
blue water and marble statues placed before tended trees
and bushes (fig. 9.9). Even longer detours were needed
for someone to reach those sculptural and horticultural
arrangements across the pool.
At first it is the cumulative effect of the un-
folding replications that catches the attention. Yet each
garden courtyard differs in size, in shape, in the location
and form of windows, and in A look at
the ground plan shows how on the north end whimsi·
cal, concave and convex architectural shapes introduce
novel viewing angles, seen in the intersecting semicircular
walls (hemicyclcs) of rooms 87 and 89 (figs. 9.1o-9.11).
Fig. 9.8: Plan of wmg with visual room amm poe! and Such convoluted, indoor-outdoor spaces arc quite rare in
north·JDuth through viridaria. /ldapttdf rom plan hy Victoria I and}amts
Stattton-/1/Jhott.
domestic architecture but find a contemporary parallel in
' the Villa San Marco at nearby
another lavish complex,
Stabia (fig. 9.12).

Fig 9.9: Statuts around pool

Drawing: Victoria I.

l OJ BmlNA BERGMANN
Fig. 9.10: Rwm 8-J, south wall Photo: Paul Bardagjy.
Let us imagine a viewer standing in the center
of one of these garden rooms, able to view all four
frescoed walls. u Room 70, the first viridarium to be
seen on the north from the grand reception space, oecus
69, is an example of how carefully composed the garden
murals were. The south wall of room 70, hidden from
the viewer standing outside, remains relatively unembel-
lished. The east and west walls, which would have been
seen only partially through windows and then from an
GARDENS AND GARDEN PAINTINGS
Fig. 9.11: Room 8; , wall Photo: Paul Bardagjy.
Fig. 9.12: Inu rior rourtyard, Villa
San Marro at Stahia. Photo:
auth11r.
angle, present parallel compositions: in two large, vertical
yellow fields framed by red borders are fictive fountain
statues, on one side a sphinx and on the other a centaur,
both supporting water basins on their heads (fig. 9·IJ).
As usual, profuse greenery, bright blossoms, and a full jet
of water attract birds; on the east wall, a ripening apple
tree rises behind the centaur fountain. The marble hybrid
creatures seem to be alive; their strikingly expressive
faces and lively poses deny any function as immobile,
101
 A north

73 74

71lilr:2
lf
D

B west C east

Fig. 9·IJ." Composi/( ofwalls in

room 70. Photos: Paul Bardngjy.
Cmur plan: Vi(/oria I and]amlS
Stanlo11-Ahho11.

D south
static supports. The seated centaurs, with four legs and
two arms, support themselves on one foreleg and raise
the other, while their arms arc extended, either gesticu-
lating or holding something aloft. Once again, clements
shuffle crosswise between the walls, as was succinctly
captured in a sketch by Jashemski (fig. g.14). 1h Each
sphin.x and centaur faces its counterpart across the room,
but on the cast wall, the sphinx bears a square basin and
the centaur a round one, while on the west, the shape is
switched: the centaur(ess) carries a square basin and the
sphinx a round one.
We have seen that highly crafted, three-dimen-
sional counterparts for the painted centaurs were found at
the villa itself (fig. g.15 and cat nos. 32-33). Their chiastic
postures indicate male and female pairs, and statue bases
found in the north garden suggest that in a later phase
they stood before bushes after having functioned as
fountains somewhere else, perhaps in viridarium zo. Each
holds an attribute that spouted water: a rearing female
centaur with raised forelegs holds a lyre, another a small
deer on her right shoulder, and a rearing male centaur
carries a boar and another a cratcrY
In room 70, the center of attention is the north
wall, the first to be seen through the large picture window
on the south from room 69 and one that contains another
Fig. 9.14: Skdch by /Vilhdmillnjashtmski ;, room 70•
opening revealing yet more rooms and painted gardens from Daybook 1977·

Fig. 9·15: Marblt em/arm. Photo: Sta11ley jashtmski

GARDFNS o\'lD GAAD[I'. 105

 Fig. 9.16: Clou-up ofptacock on rraur. wall, roo"' ;o. Adapted
from photo by Paul Bardagjy.
within the villa. Only one painted scene appears on this
wall: immediately to the left of the window, a stunning
marble crater with delicate, spiral handles sits on a tall
base between myrtle shrubs (fig. 9.16). Sculpted on its
body is a male hybrid with swirling snake legs, sensitively
rendered by the painter with highlights and shading to
capture the subtle rise and fall of the monochrome relief.
Water bubbles up from the basin; on the right edge an
enormous peacock with colorful plumage and a train
sporting iridescent eyespots turns its head and extends
a talon toward the deep blue water; a small hovering
bird approaches from the left. The scene has no pendant
in this room but, as we shall see, finds a twin on a wall
two rooms directly to the south. Both could be seen by a
viewer from the grand central oecus 69.
The view north from room 70 leads first through
oecus 74, which was decorated with inlaid marble and a
statue in a niche, and then through a bay window into
the smaller, oddly shaped viridarium 87. The curved
walls of this space, painted with unusual patterns of red
and yellow color fields, feature no fountain statues but
water vessels of varying forms, including an entirely new
shape of a deep, ovoid urn on the west wall. Two of these
garden vignettes arc remarkably well preserved. On the
t (}{.
Fig. 9.17: Detail off ountain on fOil wall. room 87. Photo: Paul Burdagjy.
east wall, a golden female oriole drinks from a finely
carved, round basin, while another bird on the upper left
pecks at a light blue myrtle berry (fig. 9·17).18 The painters
have deftly captured the effects of sunlight on still and
moving water and the ways it hits the cut stone, egg-
and-dart rims and foliated legs. The south wall reverses
the room's yellow color scheme: now against a bright red
background, hues of green leaves, white myrtle blossoms,
a blue bird, and shimmering liquid create a vivid scene,
at once entirely natural and unreal (fig. 9.18). The square
basin tips upward to show the fluted, inner round bowl;
the finely feathered blue bird leans forward to drink from
the gushing stream of water. Especially suggestive is the
juxtaposition of marble leaves of the fountain leg with
the verdant, flowering leaves of the myrtle shrub.
This northern series of rooms has a correspond-
ing suite to the south of oews 69, which, however, is
shorter and lacks the imaginative curvilinear shapes of
rooms 87 and 89. The divergent plans of north and south
make it all the more astonishing that the painted gardens
in the two parts of this wing appear to be near mir-
ror replicas of each other (figs. 9·19-9·2o). 19 lt is in fact
remarkable how every aspect of the rooms in this north-
south series was carefully composed to be part of a whole.
BETIINA BERGMANN

Fig 9.18: Dltail offountairr, 1outh wall, room 87. Adaptedfrom photo by
Paul Bardagjy.
Fig. 9·19: South wall ofroom 68. Photo: Paul Bardagiy.
GARDENS AND GARD EN PAINTINGS
Designers paired rooms in north and south as mirror
images with echoing marble basins (70 and 68 and 87 and
61), and this resonance would have been perceptible to
viewers in certain parts of the wing. Although the visual
axis shifts slightly toward the cast in oecrts 65, the end
point of the south sequence-niche 61 (fig. 9.21)-could,
in fact, be seen from the farthest room to the north, 89.
The gaze of someone in that space traversed six differ-
ent windows (89, 87, 74, 70, 69, 68) (see fig. 9.10). Add to
those actual openings the painted "windows," and views
multiply along the entire length of the series; depth of
vision is lost, and the whole merges into one painted
surface. As we saw in the built and painted spaces of the
west wing, the designers of Villa A systematically sought
to dissolve boundaries and fool the senses. It is telling
that even modern visitors imagine they see many more
than four painted garden enclosures, and scholarly litera-
ture tends to describe the sequence of rooms as longer
than it is.
ORCHESTRATED PERSPECTIVES
How might a person in the first century AD have
perceived such an array of carefully orchestrated per-
spectives? It is clear that the elegant reception rooms
between the painted garden rooms were built and
oriented to maximize viewing, and the actual outdoor
arrangements seen fro m these spaces were as carefully
Frg 9.:10: North wall ofroom JO· Photo: Paul Bardagiy.
1()7

Fig. Painttd nicht, rwm 61. Phcto: Paul Bardagjy.
constructed as the painted ones. The richest and most
expansive experience surely must have been from the
largest reception room, oecrts 69, whose special status is
marked by its central location and elevated roof (see fig.
9.8). Especially well illuminated and ventilated thanks to
its height and the wide openings on all the walls, oecus 69
was further enhanced by shining marbles on the opm sec•
tile floor and lower walls, making it a genuinely reflective
space. (For this space and a reconstruction ofits marble
floor, sec Barker, chapter u, in this volume.)
In this one room, a person could turn in every
cardinal direction and enjoy an array of far-reaching
vistas. But, as is typical for Roman spatial planning, from
no point is the view direct. In fact, the slightly oblique
north-south visual axis docs not lead directly through
the actual windows of the garden rooms but fosters an
oscillation between fictive and real vistas. We should
also consider that these were not always vacant spaces.
A viewer looking through the red and yellow light wells,
where living plants combined with their painted simula-
tions, also saw additional reception rooms, 74 to the north
and 65 to the south, where other observers might have
gazed back.
To the west and east, wide openings presented
scenes that were far from static, with living trees, plants,
flowers, and birds in ever-shifting daylight. An enor-
mous picture window on the west looked through a
1011
portico onto a green wall of shade trees in the north
garden. Turning east, the eye moved in through a series of
frames, a wide doorway, the columns of the portico (6o),
and across the water to marble figures standing before
trees (98). As casts of root cavities suggest, the topiarius
carefully selected the plantings: in the center, two lemon
trees flowered in early spring; moving outward, clusters
of oleanders bloomed in June and July in pink, red, yel-
low, or white; at the outer positions were dark and shady
plane trees (see fig. 9.9).20 If the order was indeed so,
blossoming would have been staggered, with the central
trees opening first, a natural "still-life" in which even the
seasons were orchestrated. The symmetry of the whole
was reinforced by paired statues before twin bushes and
trees on either side of the columns. A person sitting or
lying in oecus 69 during the spring and summer months
could enjoy a very gradually "moving" picture, perpetually
animated by the rotating sun, by shadows cast from trees,
columns, and statues, and by their fluctuating reflec-
tions on the water. It was a spectacle of cultivated nature,
involving not just sight but the senses of smell, aroused
by fragrant lemons, and of touch, suggested by the varied
textures of stone, leaf, fruits, and blossoms.
PROSPECTS FROM A DAY ROOM (DIAETA 78)
A few other reception rooms in the east wing offered
enticing prospects of the garden grounds, but one in
particular formed an important nucleus, the lavish day
room (diaeta) at the south end of the pool (78). The exte-
rior itself was a view to behold, painted on all sides with
flowering bushes behind a brown lattice fence on which
perch a pigeon and a peacock (fig. 9.22). These murals,
which may well extended real plantings, found
mirror images at the northern end of the pool, partially
excavated (97), which must have been a pendant leisure
space. Between these two rooms stretched the portico
(6o), painted entirely in white to reflect the light bounc-
ing from the pool water, its steady rhythm of columns
marked by miniature seascapes filled with blue water and
sky. (Sec also Gee, chapter 8, in this volume for a discus-
sion of portico 6o.)
The interior of the diaeta was extravagant, with
wood paneling on walls and colored opm sectile on the
floor. (See Barker, chapter n, in this volume for recon-
structions of the decor.) Two windows opened to the
north and south, while two others looked to the east (92).
The view through the cast window offers the best exam-
ple of a picturesque composition combining plants and
sculpture. For persons reclining in positions of honor, in
the left corner of the tridi11ium, the framed vista featured
a version of the famous sculpture group of a satyr strug-
gling with a hermaphrodite at the south end of the pool.
While the strolling spectator outside could appreciate the
erotic pair from all sides and see it reflected in the water,
BETIINA BERGMANN
the view of the figures from behind draws attention to
the ambiguous sexuality of the hermaphrodite, who from
this angle could well be mistaken for a nymph. 21 Right
behind the statue may have stood the monumental,
sculpted marble crater (sec fig. 9.5), a focal point that
reappears, as we have seen, in the frescoes of viridarium
:1.0 and the matching garden courtyards 70 and 68, where
glowing yellow backgrounds place the familiar scene in
an alternate reality (sec figs. 9.16, 9·19-9.20).22
WATER, MARBLE, AND LIVING GARDENS
The pictorial scheme of a fountain surrounded by thriv-
ing vegetation and spirited birds is not unique to the
villa. It was well established in Italy by the Augustan
period. In all likelihood there were Hellenistic prec-
edents, but whatever the initial inspiration, the marble
fountain became a key sign of wealth in Roman homes,
demonstrating both access to abundant water and the
engineering prowess to produce a powerful and continu-
ous flow through the narrow feet of craters and limbs of
sculpted figurcs. 11 Like the image of the trained vine, it
came to be a visual trope connoting luxury.
Although the clements- bubbling basins, trees
and bushes, perching and flying birds-were familiar in
Roman garden painting, excavations around the villa sug-
ge:.t that the deep views into painted interiors echo sights
enjoyed right outside. Indeed, the actual outdoor gardens
must have appeared like paintings that can be entered.
From one end of the villa to the other, at least so pieces
of marble sculpture stood among the plants and trees-
variations on Greek masterpieces, contemporary
GARDENS AND GARDEN PAINTINGS
traits, mythological creatures, and gods-most of them
in regular formations alongside the pool or garden paths.
However, except for the marble crater and centaurs, none
of the murals depict these many statues, nor did excava-
tions turn up matches for the fountains depicted in the
frescoes. (Sec van der Graaff, chapter 5, in this volume
for the excavations of water features in the gardens.)
The painted views arc selective, and the ways that they
are coordinated with actual prospects at Villa A create a
uniquely coherent, multimedia cnsemblc.24
What did the scenes signify? Without a doubt,
these arc extravagant layouts: cultivated bushes and trees,
trained vines, imported marble, state-of-the-art water-
works-all coveted accessories of Roman gardens. The
bright white sculptures, which show traces of pigment,
attest the growing popularity of marble in the mid-first
century when the villa was in its last stage of embellish-
ment. A contemporary viewer might have appreciated
the cost of obtaining such beautifully carved pieces or the
many hours of slave labor needed to supply and feed W J -
ter up into the shallow basins to produce such high jets,
a spectacle that in reality probably could only occur on
special occasions. Some decades later, Pliny the Younger
would describe the very same amenities at his villas:
white marble scats, aquatic displays in marble fountains,
and vine-covered structures for reposing in the shade,
all man-made features set among carefully tended trees,
bushes, and flowers. 25
Horticulture was a relatively new art to Romans
in the mid first-century AD. In his books on architec-
ture dedicated to Vitruvius already articulated
much of what we sec, addressing design theory, landscape
architJcturc, engineering, water supply, and public parks.
Fig. 9.:1:1: G11rdm p11irrting on
emf(m exterior ifroom i8· Photo:
Stmt!cy }mhmuki.
lO'J
A few decades later, Columella, who wrote when the villa
was in its last phase of embellishment, says that earlier
agricultural writers had ignored gardening (cultus horto-
rum), but by his day it had become most celebrated.26 In
the gardens of Villa A , human intervention is everywhere
apparent: in the tending ofbushes and pruning of tree
limbs, in the regularly spaced specimen plants at the
bottom of walls (hart's tongue, myrtle, a clump of ivy,
arbutus, laurel, rose), and of course in the ivy trained to
wind up between the windows. 27
Part of the brilliance of the painted walls and
living gardens at the villa is the skillful exploitation of
that most elusive of clements: time. We have noted the
designers' sensitivity to the quotidian rhythms of light
and to seasonal cycles of vegetation. Painters brought
their static illusions to life by capturing flowing water,
ripening fruit, blossoming flowers, and especially hover-
ing birds in arrested animation. While the blooming row
of trees and bushes alongside the pool unfolded over
weeks, in the frescoes time collapsed; the days it takes
apples to ripen is now equal to the split second of a bird
alighting on a basin. Consider the myrtle thickets that
bear both blossoms and fruit, displaying the plant's full
potential and range of color in white petals and blue
and reddish berries, as if several seasons arc captured
in one "snapshot," an impossible coincidence in nature
(see fig. 9.11). About 550 birds flutter and alight on walls
throughout the complex, and one wonders whether the
sheer number and variety arc associated with the rage for
aviaries, in Latin ornithones, that since the late Republic
110
villa owners maintained both for profit and pleasure.
The preening peacocks, in particular, had come to be a
symbol ofluxury, kept as ornamental guards and enjoyed
as delicacies at the table. Depicted on a crater in a fictive
garden (sec fig. 9.20) or perching on a ledge of fantasti-
cal architecture in grand salon 15 (see fig. 9.6), their vivid
feathers and jewel-like trains competed with the nearby
images of precious stones and gems. 28
The villa at Oplontis is a superb example of the
ways that the desire for visual pleasure inspired strategies
to arrange space, orchestrate movement, and stimulate
the eye. These include the correlation of different media
(painting, architecture, sculpted marble, and topiary) and
the echoing of motifs or compositions in different parts
of the villa. Craftsmen realized skillful imitations of one
medium with another and achieved harmony, be it of
materials, of exterior and interior spaces, or of spectator
and surroundings. Architecture assumed the colors and
textures of nature, and nature took on geometric shape.
The playful, self-referential spirit of decor is evident
in the paths and rooms that invited different kinds of
engagement. For the viewer, the artful combinations
multiplied possibilities for the mobile eye and body and
established a game of perception. Each ingenious compo-
sition incited dialogues with the environment, as the ob-
server witnessed, and thus experienced, the coexistence of
different kinds of time. More than a pleasing backdrop,
the painted interiors and cultivated gardens communicate
a value system and underlying attitude toward the mate-
rial clements of /uxuria.
RETIINA BERGMANN
CHAPTER 9
On the gardens: Jashemski 19llr, 1993,J7j-378; Griigcr 2002; Gleason
2014. On the spatial principles: Bergmann :oo:b.
2 Other partial "painted appear on the low wall in the service
courtyard (p) and on the exterior \v:tlls of the lavish reception room
(room 78) at the southwest end of the pool, which would have been
mirrored outside the matching space on the north
(room 92).
3 On the paintings:Jashemski 1979, 290-292; 1993, 375-376; Michel
1980, 393-394. On brardcn paintinb'll in general: Settis 2002; Mastro·
roberto 2007.
4 lltcre was no fourth tree in the southeast corner as it would have
blocked the only entry into the space. On the root cavities and post
holes: Jashemski 1993, 292; on the fountain that was later dismantled
and buried: 1l10mas and Clarke 2011; Guidobaldi and Pcsando 2007,
csp. 125, follow Jashemski 1993,306 on her discovery of the bases in
the larb'C brarden {s6) and propose that in this place the four centaur
statues could be seen from room 21. De Caro 1976; 1987. On the
definition of viridarimn, sec Landgren 1004, 151-I77.
5 Oplontis meets Cato's requirement for a landed estate: "If possible,
it should lie at the foot of a mountain and face south ... and ncar it
there should be a Rourishing town, or the sea, or a stream,
or a good and much travelled road" (Df Agr. 1.3: Si potfris, sub radiu
manti11ift, in nuridicm . .. honmn']llt a'luarium, oppidum va·
lidum propc 1irt aut marc aut anmis, IJUa nave1 amhula11t, aut via bona
ulchriJ']Ut (Loeb edition, trans. !-looper, rev. Ash 4-5). Varro recom·
mends that a villa have an cast-west orientation to optimize sun and
winds for lighting and ventilation, have access to transport both by
road and water, and be not far from a town or market (Rust. t.l6.t-J).
Oplontis fulfills all these criteria, and more, for it was attractive
(wnmlns) to behold: "11te more regard is had for appearances, the
b>Teater will be the profits" (Rmt. 1.7.1).
6 On the discovery, early photographs, and reconstitution of the walls,
sec Clarke 1014, pura 765; on the frescoes: Gee forthcoming.
7 On the west wall,Jashc:mski 1993,376 noted a while bird on the
crater's rim and a peacock "in the tree" on the right.
8 lltc paintings on either side of the window in the north wall were
not preserved, so that Baronio's reconstruction of that particular wall
remains speculative.
9 Grassinb>cr 1991, 144-151 on calyx and volute craters, and on the
Oplontis crater: Kat. 45.6o;)ashemski 1979, JU, fig. 480.
10 Sec Gee forthcoming; on visual cross· referencing among painted
and real gardens, sec Bergmann 2014, csp.254-255·
11 On ivy: Jashcmski 1993, 294-295. Gleason 2014, para 1080, fig. 38 hus
made a dr:1wing of the trained ivy on the columns; Ricciardi 1014,
para 1111; Jashemski, Meyer, and Ricciardi 2001, IIJ- 114, cat. 63.
n On panels and windows: Bergmann 1oo2a, with earlier bibliogra·
phy. Lucr. 4·244-155; on seeing through doors to the outside world:
4.271- 278; on viewing a diminishing colonnade: .;..;:6--IJI. On
Lucretius and Second Style painting: Borbein •975·
13 Root C:lVities were found in room 68: Jashcmski 1979.)08; Clarke
2014.
14 Gee forthcoming, chapter 10, gives a thorough, detailed description
of the frescoes in the courtyards.
15 It is :1 situ:ltion that does not seem to have been intended in antiq·
uity, even though the interiors were fully decorated.
t6 Jashcmski also sketched the designs of rooms 68 and 78 in her
daybooks of 1977: Clarke 2014.
17 In fact, the pairing of sphin."<L-s and centaurs in rooms 6o, 611,70, and
87 is very unusual, but there is a significant p:1ralld on the north
wall of the peristyle in the House of the Arches in Pompeii (1, t7, 4),
where centaurs square marble basins and sphinxes circular ones.
Such close similarities betray common models among muralists in
the Vcsuvian area and make it clear that the pictorial displays at
Villa A arc not exact reproductions of what was seen immediately
outside. At the same time, the frescoes and brardcns share the same
subjects and compositions, namely a marble sculpture before a sped·
men tree or bush. On the Oplontis centaurs: De Caro 1976; 198r,
l'vloormann forthcoming a, cat. 11. Although their muscular bodies
,.._OT <.,
and active limbs resemble thor.c of the painted centaurs in room 70,
the latter find much closer parallels in several murals in Pompeii.
1l1c winged sphinxes in rooms 10, 68, and 70 seem to be drawn from
the same model as the those in the 'lliridarium of the !-louse of Ceii
in Pompeii (I, 6, 15), where they appear on either side of the large
animal painting on the lower part of the red framework: Jashcmski
1979, 70, fig. IIJ. Similar too arc the sphinxes on the upper walls of
the grand rzymphacum of House of the Centenary (IX, 8, J-6): PPM
vol. n, 1004-1005; the House of the Arches in Pompeii (1, 17, 4):
Jashemski 1979,59, fig. 95·
18 Ricciardi 10t4, par:11115.
19 This is most evident in the two diametrically opposed rooms 68 and
70, whose facing walls could be through the two larb'C windows
of 6') (figs. 9.19 and 9.2o,juxtaposition of south wall of room
68 and north wall of room ]0). from this distance, the garden scenes
look like reversed mirror images, with the fountain to the right of
the window in room 68 and the fountain to the left of the window
in room 70. We sec the same crater, but instead of the preening
peacock, a long-k'g!,'Cd water bird, the stands on the left,
and a thrush Hies in from the right rather than the left. The other
walls match as well but once more with reversals. Thus on the west
\v:tlls of both rooms, a sphinx t its on the left and a centaur on dte
right, but in room 68 the sphinx carries the shallow, Autcd bowl
shape and the centaur the square dish with inner round bowl. Over
and over again, the painters repeat a b'Cncral pattern but enliven it
with unexpected variations and modifications.
20 Jashcmski 1993, is fairly certain about the oleander trees,
for a branch and roots were found ; lemon trees arc likely, as planting
pots with holes suggest air layering.
2t On the group, sec Moormann forthcoming a.
21 An alabaster crater fountain appeared in a similar place at the end
of the pool at the Villa San Marco, which was expanded during the
Julio-Claudian period; there the crater also was the focus of views,
possibly framed by rows of plane trees lining the pool: Jashemsk.i
1979· JJO-JJl, fig. 530.
Jashemski 1979,32-34, So-81; 19'JJ, index under "fountains"; Mu·
gionc, Giordano, and Ciarallo 2012, liJ- 216 counted 51 basins as the
focal point of frescoes, all surrounded by a fence or enclosure,
among them 17 round basins and 14 craters; for full study of acfUal
and painted fountains, sec Ciarallo 2011, JIJ-:J30.
24 For a <lisplay of a variety of basin shapes, sec the {;iridarium walls of
the !-louse of Venus Marina (1 , l,J). Most actual marble fountains
were found in private homes, both outside and inside, but often be·
tween columns of a peristyle, as in the 1-louse ofC:1ecilius Jucundus
( V, 1, 16). In the !-louse of the faun (VI,n, 5-]), an observer could
look through a window of the tablinum to the middle of a peristyle
where, surrounded by 28 Ionic columns, a marble fountain jetted wa·
tcr into a shallow pool.1l1c best example of a large range of fountain
shapes within one space is the peristyle of the 1-louse ofVcttii (VI,
15, t), where care \vas taken to place them on visual axes, with round
basins in the corners and a n:ctanb>Uiar basin in the middle of each
side. Ambrogi 2005.
25 Plio. Ep. 5· 6.36-40. Jones and Robinson 2005.
26 Most elaborate was Varro's own aviary, which W:l\ said to outdo even
Lucullus's , and his own dib>Tession on the aviary demonstrates how
one wealthy owner could realize his fan tasks in horticultural and
architectural form (Ru11. 3·S·8).
27 Twenty-one plants have been identified on the painted walls :md
many more in the gardens proper: Ricciardi 2014, para 1115. Gleason
2014.
28 Varro says once they wc:rc served as a delicacy at meals their price
rose steeply: Rmt. 3.3.6; J ashcmski 1993, 379; J ashemski, Mcyc r, and
Ricciardi lOOl, J!l8. Sec also Gee, chapter 8, in this volume.
CHAPTER 10
Lapatin 2015, I discusses the origin of the wordsluxuv luxuria and
the implications for interpreting material culture.
2 Cato the Elder quoted by Festus (p. :81 Lindsey, S-<J). On comopc1/o
and Carthaginian inAucnce, sec Dunbabin 1999, :o.
.!&I