(ANSA) - ROME, NOVEMBER 18 - Closed to the public for years due to the complex restorations it needed, the Casa dei Vettii reopens to the public in Pompeii, inaugurated on Tuesday November 22 by the Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano, among the richest and best known houses of the Campanian town buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD
Located in the richest part of the city, right in front of another famous house, that of the golden Cupids, the Casa dei Vettii belonged to the brothers Aulo Vettio Restituto and Aulo Vettio Conviva, freedmen who became rich with the wine trade, wealthy to the point of entering Pompeian society with all the honors, so much so that one of them was part of the college of Augustali and the other was a candidate for the position of aedile.
Purchased the house, which existed from the second century.
C., the two had it restored by enriching it with a garden where statues, fountains and water games abounded.
In all the rooms of this fabulous house there were refined paintings that covered the walls up to the ceiling, executed with the eclecticism and magnificence of the so-called "fourth style", the one that was in fashion in the first half of the first century.
A.D
In the various rooms around the first atrium or facing the peristyle, mythological and even erotic scenes abound, accompanied by a myriad of details, among all a sort of festoon with cupids engaged in preparing a banquet.
Very famous, the Priapus with the enormous phallus resting on the pan of a balance, which welcomed visitors at the entrance to the house.
The two safes that were in the atrium are also impressive, perhaps precisely to underline the wealth of the owners.
Already affected by works in 1995, when the problem created by the concrete roofs of the 1950s was evident, the house had been partially reopened in 2016, after 12 years of closure to then be closed again after 3 years for further restorations, which affected the roofs but also the paintings,
with the removal of the patina created by previous restorations.
During the visit, the minister will be accompanied by the director of the Park Gabriel Zuchtriegel and by the general director of the MiC museums Massimo Osanna.
(HANDLE).