Wine and eros, great beauty, trivial reality, in the Vettii House in Pompeii reopened to the public

Between wine and eros, great beauty and trivial reality, the iconic “Domus” of the ancient Roman city buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, and of world art, a Unesco World Heritage Site, belonged to Aulus Vettius Conviva and Aulus Vettius Restitutus, probably two freedmen who became rich through the wine trade but also practiced prostitution, as evidenced by the extraordinary frescoes in the room of the Harvesting Cupids, a prelude to the triumph of Dionysus. This is the House of the Vettii in Pompeii, reopened to the public after 20 years of restoration, thanks to which we are once again able to admire a masterpiece unearthed by the Archaeological Park’s excavations between 1894 and 1896, which restored its opulent pictorial and sculptural furnishings, which also reflect the wealth of the city’s territory, where wine was produced for export throughout the Mediterranean, and the social mobility, which allowed two former slaves to rise to the highest levels of local society.
“The House of the Vettii is the history of the Roman world enclosed in a house, the “house museum” of Romanity so to speak: there are mythological frescoes and sculptures in bronze and marble, of exceptional artistic quality, that speak of the complex relationship between Greek models and Roman reworkings, but also the economic and social life of the city. The owners, freedmen and thus former slaves, are an expression of social mobility that would have been unthinkable two centuries earlier. They became rich by trading in agricultural products from the area around Pompeii, but apparently, prostitution was also practiced in their house, by a Greek slave who belonged to the weaker groups of society”, explains Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Pompeii Archaeological Park, where the reopening of the house of the Vettii, after lengthy restoration work under the direction of Culture Ministry Museums General Director Massimo Osanna, “is the crowning achievement of a multi-year journey of full recovery of the Pompeii excavations”, emphasizes Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano.
The Room of the Cupids is the best-known pictorial complex in the house and is located in the oecus (hall) that opens onto the northern portico of the peristyle. In the upper part of the richly decorated walls, poets are surrounded by Muses, Maenads and Musician Satyrs, while in the middle one candelabra and gold tripods punctuate panels decorated with pairs of flying figures. On the plinth are depicted priestesses, Amazons, maenads and satyrs above which open squares with scenes of sacrifice to Diana and Psyche picking flowers. But the most distinctive scenes, which give the room its name, are those in the frieze painted above the plinth. A long theory of Cupids intent on the most diverse activities and trades: florists and wreath sellers, perfume makers and merchants, goldsmiths and chiselers, fullers, bakers and grape harvesters, where the latter serve as a prelude to the triumph of Dionysus. The mood is playful, and the Amorini are often depicted in entertaining competitions. But there is no shortage of traces of the life of the last in the house, including a room adjacent to the kitchen in the servile quarters, decorated with erotic paintings, which has been speculated to have been used for prostitution.
In the peristyle garden, among whose sculptures a unique statue of Priapus, god of abundance, stands out, ancient plant species reproduced in the Park’s nursery have also been planted as part of a larger project to enhance historic gardens and put the green areas of the ancient city into production through partnerships with local farmers and producers. Alongside the archaeological excavations, in fact, Pompeii is a true repository of “agribusiness” archaeology: from the rebirth of vine cultivation thanks to the Mastroberardino label, which, from the vineyards among the ruins, produces a wine, Villa dei Misteri, a blend of Aglianico, Piedirosso and Sciascinoso, with the Archaeological Park’s Applied Research Laboratory, to research on Pompeian cuisine by star chef Paolo Gramaglia, who brings “panis” and recipes from antiquity to the table in his restaurant President, with the help of the Superintendence. Not to mention the intact re-emergence in lockdown of the Regio V thermopolis from the lapilli that on Oct. 24, 79 A.D. submerged Pompeii by the eruption of Vesuvius, and which unveiled to the world all the antiquity and beauty of conviviality, new evidence of the eternal splendor and frenetic daily life of the “crystallized” city, in which something like 80 “food stores” with ante litteram street food peddling are counted, due to the habit of Pompeians to consume food and wine at the counter, on the fly and in the street. Just like today.