page_title: House of the Prince of Naples
section_title: Garden (n)
hierarchical_section_title: House of the Prince of Naples / Decoration and finds / Garden (n)
caption_attribution_description: English: A temple style lararium in the garden of the House of the Prince of Naples, Pompeii, Italy 2nd century BCE - 1st century CE
context_page_description: The House of the Prince of Naples is a Roman townhouse located in Region VI, Insula XV, entrances 7 and 8 in the archaeological site of Pompeii near Naples, Italy. The structure is so named because the Prince and Princess of Naples Joseph Bonapartes grandson Louis Joseph and his wife Laura, attended a ceremonial excavation of selected rooms there on March 22, 1898. The house is painted throughout in the Pompeian Fourth Style and is valued by scholars because its decoration is all of a single style and single period, unlike many surviving Roman structures that are found to be a hodgepodge of styles from different periods.
context_section_description: On the west wall of the garden is a temple-shaped lararium with four stuccoed columns.  the capitals are embellished with dark red calathos (flared fruit baskets) with blue acanthus leaves.  In the northeast corner of the garden there is still the barrel-shaped clay wellhead of the cistern opening.
  Strocka observed that the owners of the house appeared to consciously place the lararium so the lares could "see" into each main room of the house as an apotropaic measure.
  During this period, Roman philosophers, including Cicero and Pliny the Elder, were promoting the architectural memory system in which the decoration of the home could serve as a mnemonic trigger. So a view of the lararium may have served to remind the occupants of the home of the importance of pietas and visiting guests of the residents' virtue.
  Besides the lararium,  finds include a fragmented trapezoid marble table formed by a lion's foot that widens toward the top to support a sculpture of Silenus emerging from acanthus leaves and holding baby Bacchus in his left arm.  Excavators also recovered a bronze patera with a fine dog's head handle, a vase with three spouts and a handle supporting a rabbit head, a terracotta amphora, and a bronze handle for a mirror.
caption: A temple style lararium in the garden
exif: {}