Preserved in Ash: The Villa San Marco Near Pompeii

All right everyone we are at the Villa San Marco in Stabiai by the Bay of Naples so kind of near Pompeii and so this here is the Villa San Marco. We're going to check it out it's really cool. It was discovered in the 18th century by engineers working for Charles de Bourbon, the Bourbons, and so they came in and they sort of were interested in wall painting. The same people sort of excavated and did looting at Pompeii and you can see if you come up here this is how high the modern street level is. Everything down to where I'm standing was filled with the volcanic ash from Vesuvius, the lapilli, that poured down covering everything in this region after the eruption in 79 AD. So let's walk into the building. We come in through this absolutely grand entrance flanked by columns and as we come in we're in the atrium. This is the major entrance that's here. There's an opening in the roof up here and a pool of water flanked by four columns. Very monumental entrance for anyone coming in. The people who lived here were extremely wealthy. Everything is lavishly decorated with these kind of wall paintings all around, different columns, lovely mosaics. We'll check out a few. We can see some of these small rooms off of the atrium. They have beautiful wall paintings and you can even see some that were taken by the Bourbons in their excavation. On the right you'll see a blank space. Wait a second. There's some of them. There you can see that blank space where one was robbed out. It's now in the Naples Museum. This over here is the lararium and this is where the family shrine would be. So there would have been little statues and things like that for worshiping the family deities, the lares or the geniuses. This right here is where a safe was held holding family sort of valuables but probably since it's in the atrium it would have been things to show off. But a strong box was right here. So as we walk through these lavishly decorated corridors this here is some etched on graffiti. We'll be checking to see if it's modern or ancient. If you're seeing this it means it's ancient because we've confirmed that it's actually ancient. Someone scratched this into the frescoes. So it'll be intriguing to see whether this was maybe Bourbon in period that it was scratched in or ancient or more recent. Here you can get this sense of this wall painting how it sort of extends the feel of the room by giving almost an architectural feeling as if there's architecture there. I mean it wouldn't be so faded of course you know 2,000 years ago and then little tiny paintings set in that have started to fade away. As we come in here this is the bath complex and athletic area. It's also lavishly decorated as we'll see in a second with scenes of athletic sort of contests. You can see areas where wall paintings have been cut out and taken away many of which are still in the Archaeological Museum in Naples. Some of them as we'll see have actually been put back in place in order to give a better perspective for visitors. So you can see here how this was cut out and then it was replaced so that us visitors get a sense of how things were in the past. In fact most of these in this room are like that and there's a really cool one over here. Two children it looks like they're wrestling and behind us is a cold bath area. Some steps here tough to see from the angle you're at and then this room over here and we're not gonna be able to see that but this room over here is the warm bath area. We'll show you guys a photo. One of the important things to always keep in mind is we think of Pompeii and the region around here as like a moment locked in time but when we're looking at it in the year 2024 we need to understand that it's really not that. The Bourbons have had their impact by removing material in the 18th century and as we'll see I'll show you how we can see more recent reconstruction and conservation. So as we come back out here into this hallway let's take a look at this wall. We've already sort of looked at some of the wall paintings but let's look at the construction of the wall behind it right. So these kind of stones in that kind of shape that's a type of ancient Roman architectural style called opus reticulatum. It's the ancient wall. As you look up can you see where the modern reconstruction starts? You notice the conservators here they were good. Sometimes conservators aren't but this time they were because they left this line of tiles that tells anyone who's looking closely where the ancient construction stops and where the modern reconstruction begins and this is very valuable for archaeologists so they understand which part to interpret. We want to interpret the ancient construction not the modern renovations. Okay now let's walk outside into the garden and so this is a lovely Paris style garden area. Nice Paris style. You will cease to wonder when you discover the pleasantness of the villa the convenience of its location and the extent of the shore. Tell me now have I not good reason for staying here spending my time here and loving a retreat such as this? With an extremely large pool perhaps for swimming you could see Michael Phelps or an Olympic swimmer swimming here and then we can even get a sense of the trees that were once here. We see modern trees but we also see the casts for ancient trees. Plain trees that were planted here a series of them on both sides you can see some of these casts another one is over here and botanists have studied the roots to be able to identify them as plain trees. So yeah as we walk over here off this courtyard we can see even these outdoor spaces at least the ones that are covered are still decorated with lovely wall paintings some of which have been put back. I think some of these are replicas that have been put back and what you get is a very stark contrast. This area is for the wealthy free people to enjoy and we can see the difference between an area for the wealthy and the elites and an area the service area where the enslaved people are going to be working. So this is actually the kitchen for the villa and not only do you see these kind of stoves where underneath you'd put in the wood and the coals and above it would heat up and you cook but there's no decoration in there. So that's one of the key ways archaeologists can tell the difference between sort of service quarters where enslaved people are working and then the regions where people are living and enjoying themselves for leisure if you will and if we want to see more leisure and lovely wall paintings up in this area are some of the best preserved wall paintings in the villa. They're actually very stunning still very colorful though still faded compared to what we would have seen in antiquity and so we can get a sense of the kind of decor that people would have enjoyed having on their walls in the past. Here we can sort of get a sense of the people. Villa San Marco and I guess one last space we'll go the unexcavated portion and one of the nice things is this villa at least right now is free to view so if you're in the Stebia area or Pompeii area come check it out and guess what there's still more for archaeologists to do. Another courtyard like this was uncovered in the 20th century and then if we look down in this corridor here we can see still some of the unexcavated volcanic material right at the end. So at some point in the future some archaeologists might be interested in exploring of the Villa San Marco. One last important note about this villa is its view. This is key. There are several villas along this ridge. It's Stebia, the Villa Arianna, the Villa del Pastore and they all are near the edge of this cliff with a prominent view of the plain below the Campanian plain with its fertile fertile land because of the volcanic soil. It's just fantastic for growing and it has a great view out to Vesuvius as you can see and then to Pompeii. We can see Pompeii from here. It's a spot in the middle of the architecture in a sense and so yeah we get a sense of why this is such a great location. It has a commanding view, a perfect spot for a wealthy villa owner to build their luxury villa equipped with people that are actually running the agricultural production of the area and so it's just a perfect spot for a villa like this. And cut!