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House of the Small Fountain

Ancient Roman artHouses completed in the 1st centuryHouses of Pompeii
Pompeii, Italy 121
Pompeii, Italy 121

The House of the Small Fountain (Casa della Fontana Piccola, VI.8.23), aka House of the Second Fountain or House of the Landscapes, is located in the Roman city of Pompeii and, with the rest of Pompeii, was preserved by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in or after October 79 CE. It is located on the Via di Mercurio, a street running north from the Arch of Caligula, at its crossroads with Via delle Terme, and Via della Fortuna, to Pompeii's fortification tower XI in the northwest part of the city. The street is named after a public fountain at VI.8.24 with a relief of the god, Mercury. Insula 8 is on the west side of the street. The house is named after a mosaic fountain adorned with shells at the rear of its peristyle. The property is immediately adjacent to The House of the Large Fountain (VI 8,22,1), a structure with an even larger mosaic fountain adorned with shells and marble sculptures of theatrical masks excavated earlier in 1826. So the size difference between the fountains was used to distinguish the two structures.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article House of the Small Fountain (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

House of the Small Fountain
Viale Giuseppe Mazzini,

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N 40.751429 ° E 14.483645 °
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Scavi archeologici di Pompei

Viale Giuseppe Mazzini
80045
Campania, Italy
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Pompeii, Italy 121
Pompeii, Italy 121
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Temple of Jupiter (Pompeii)
Temple of Jupiter (Pompeii)

The Temple of Jupiter, Capitolium, or Temple of the Capitoline Triad, was a temple in Roman Pompeii, at the north end of its forum. Initially dedicated to Jupiter alone, it was built in the mid-2nd century BC at the same time as the Temple of Apollo was being renovated – this was the area at which Roman influence over Pompeii increased and so Roman Jupiter superseded the Greek Apollo as the town's highest god. Jupiter was the ruler of the gods and the protector of Rome, where his temple was the center of Roman religion and of the cult of state. As the most important divinity in Ancient Rome, many temples were built to honor Jupiter or the entire Capitoline Triad (consisting of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva) in towns newly conquered by the Romans. This held true for Pompeii, where the previously existing Temple of Jupiter was enlarged and altered after conquest. Pompeii was occupied by the Romans beginning in 310 BC. It maintained much of its autonomy, however, until the Italic Revolt against Rome at the beginning of the 1st century BC. In 89, the town was besieged by Sulla. Roman language, culture, and law would soon come to dominate the city. The architecture of the town had been largely changed by the Greeks, but Roman rule would soon lead to alterations in this style. In contrast to the previous Samnite occupiers, the Romans very much believed in the importance of architecture in religious and civic life. Pompeii was transformed into a much more public and open place. Public buildings and spaces would come to dominate the city. The temple structure was built in 150 BC to dominate the forum, and it became Pompeii's main temple after the Roman conquest. Pure Italic style characterized the capitolium style, which sat atop a base measuring 121 x 56 x 10 feet. The interior of the temple contained the cella, which held the statues of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, and which only the priests were permitted to enter. There was a chamber below the main hall which was used to store sacrificial offerings and the treasury of the city. In 62 AD, an earthquake shook the city of Pompeii, destroying much of the Temple of Jupiter. After this, the much smaller Temple of Jupiter Meilichios became the main seat of worship to Jupiter and the Capitoline Triad. The original Temple of Jupiter was still awaiting restoration when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79.

House of the Surgeon
House of the Surgeon

The House of the Surgeon is one of the most famous houses in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii and is named after ancient surgical instruments that were found there. Along with the rest of the city, it was buried and largely preserved under 4 to 6 m of volcanic ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. It was excavated in 1770 by Francesco La Vega. It is modest in size and has little ornament or decoration externally but is strong and sturdy in build with its opus quadratum ashlar façade in Sarno stone, and opus africanum construction of the atrium courtyard. It was an elite residence as evidenced by the atrium being surrounded by rooms on all four sides and its rather exclusive vestibulum.For a long time, the house was thought to be one of the oldest examples in Pompeii with a date of the fourth–third century BC derived from the wall construction. However, in 1926 A. Maiuri made some excavations beneath the atrium which revealed an earlier layer of building rubble in which a late third century BC (214/212 BC) coin was found, which with the third–second century BC date of the earlier wall beneath the tablinum, suggests that the house is dated to no earlier than c.200 BC. However, the results were never published. In 2005, a further sub-79 AD-level excavation was made of the whole insula VI 1. It was shown that the atrium was modified in the 2nd century BC to provide more light to the interior, by adding a compluvium and accompanying impluvium to the previously full roof covering. The remainder of the house, however, was left mostly as it was, so it was indeed one of the earliest Italic-style houses found so far in Campania. In the final years of Pompeii, unlike its neighbour, the House of the Vestals, which had blossomed into one of the more luxurious homes in the area. the house seems to have been allowed to fall derelict as the floor between the atrium and tablinum had fallen into a large cistern below, wooden posts were inserted into the floors of many rooms to support a damaged roof, and one room was used as a lime-storage tank.

Pompeii
Pompeii

Pompeii (, Latin: [pɔmˈpei̯.iː]) was an ancient city located in what is now the comune of Pompei near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area (e.g. at Boscoreale, Stabiae), was buried under 4 to 6 m (13 to 20 ft) of volcanic ash and pumice in the Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Largely preserved under the ash, the excavated city offers a unique snapshot of Roman life, frozen at the moment it was buried, although much of the detailed evidence of the everyday life of its inhabitants was lost in the excavations. It was a wealthy town, with a population of ca. 11,000 in AD 79, enjoying many fine public buildings and luxurious private houses with lavish decorations, furnishings and works of art which were the main attractions for the early excavators. Organic remains, including wooden objects and human bodies, were interred in the ash. Over time, they decayed, leaving voids that archaeologists found could be used as moulds to make plaster casts of unique, and often gruesome, figures in their final moments of life. The numerous graffiti carved on the walls and inside rooms provide a wealth of examples of the largely lost Vulgar Latin spoken colloquially at the time, contrasting with the formal language of the classical writers. Pompeii is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Italy, with approximately 2.5 million visitors annually.After many excavations prior to 1960 that had uncovered most of the city but left it in decay, further major excavations were banned or limited to targeted, prioritised areas. In 2018, these led to new discoveries in some previously unexplored areas of the city.