page_title: Villa Poppaea
section_title: Frescoes
hierarchical_section_title: Villa Poppaea / Frescoes
caption_attribution_description: Détail d'une fresque de la villa de Poppée à Oplontis (Italie)
context_page_description: The Villa Poppaea is an ancient luxurious Roman seaside villa located in Torre Annunziata between Naples and Sorrento, in Southern Italy. It is also called the Villa Oplontis or Oplontis Villa A. as it was situated in the ancient Roman town of Oplontis.
  It was buried and preserved in the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, like the nearby cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, about 10 m below modern ground level.
  The quality of the decorations and construction suggests that it was owned by the Emperor Nero, and a pottery sherd bearing the name of a freedman of Poppaea Sabina, the second wife of the emperor Nero was found at the site, which suggests the villa may have been her residence when she was away from Rome and which gives it its popular name.
  It was sumptuously decorated with fine works of art. Its marble columns and capitals mark it out as being especially luxurious compared with others in this region that usually had stuccoed brick columns.
  Many artifacts from Oplontis are preserved in the Naples National Archaeological Museum.
  Parts of the villa lying under modern structures remain unexcavated.
context_section_description: Like many of the frescoes that were preserved due to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, those decorating the walls of the Villa Poppaea are striking both in form and in color.  Many of the frescoes are in the “Second Style” (also called the Architectural Style) of ancient Roman painting, dating to ca. 90-25 BC as classified in 1899 by August Mau. Details include feigned architectural features such as trompe-l'œil windows, doors, and painted columns.
  Frescoes in the caldarium depicting Hercules in the Garden of the Hesperides are painted in the "Third Style" (also called the Ornate Style) dating to ca. 25 BC-40 AD according to Mau.  Attention to realistic perspective is abandoned in favor of flatness and elongated architectural forms which “form a kind of shrine" around a central scene, which is often mythological.
  Immediately to the west of the triclinium is a large oecus, which was the main living room of a Roman house.  Like the caldarium frescoes, the room is also painted in the Second Style. The east wall includes some wonderful details such as a theatre mask and peacock.
  Much attention has been paid to the allusions to stage painting (scenae frons) in the Villa Poppaea frescoes, particularly those in Room 23.
caption: Oecus (15)
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