Introduction

In 2005, the Centre for the Study of Ancient Italy at the University of Texas entered into a collaboration with the Archaeological Superintendency of Pompeii, a branch of the Italian Ministry of Culture, to study and publish one of the largest ancient Roman luxury villas buried by the eruption of Vesuvius on 24 August AD 79. Known officially as Villa A at Torre Annunziata – the modern town built on top of the ancient town of Oplontis – the Villa of Oplontis lies under 8.5 metres of volcanic material, and is about three miles north of Pompeii. Its importance rests on three facts: it is enormous, with 99 excavated spaces; its decoration is exquisite; and it may have belonged to Nero's unfortunate second wife, Poppaea Sabina.

Advantages of the e-book

To develop a research strategy, I assembled a small group of experts, including an architect, a photographer, an art historian and an archaeologist. Our questions included: How did the current reconstruction of the Villa come about? What can archives and excavated artefacts tell us about the Villa? What lies beneath it? What are the meanings of its vast and complex decorative apparatus? How did its residents, including the masters, guests, and slaves, use the Villa? To answer these questions we established the Oplontis Project team, and embarked on a six-year campaign of research and excavation (Oplontis Project website).

Since the principal goal of the Oplontis Project is the definitive publication of Villa A, the question was how to publish. Over the past 30 years, two acclaimed print series had set the standard: the German series, Häuser in Pompeji, or Houses in Pompeii, and the four-volume publication The Insula of the Menander at Pompeii edited by Roger Ling. Both of these print series aim to document the houses in question to the fullest possible extent: architecture and construction techniques, decorations – including pavements and wall and ceiling paintings – statuary, small finds, and much more.

Presentation of such complex materials is a problem. Even in the folio format used by the Häuser im Pompeji volumes, illustrations often represent a large wall painting inadequately (Strocka, 1991). To create the drawings that illustrate all the walls of the house, whether decorated or not, draftspersons actually traced the walls on huge sheets of mylar. They then redrew them, using various graphic devices to make them legible. Despite the great pains taken, these drawings remain schematic.