 The House of the Vetti-E is one of the best-preserved houses from Pompeii, and after 20 years, it's once again open to the public. Let's explore something that you've probably never seen before, one of the best-preserved homes from ancient Pompeii, the House of the Vetti-E. Today we're in Pompeii, famously destroyed by the eruption of the Suvis in AD 79, thereby preserving, famously, this city of 11,000 inhabitants. And what an incredible city it is! And one of its standout features is its wall paintings in the variety of houses throughout the city. And the House of the Vetti-E is one of the best-preserved, and now it's reopened after two decades of closure, and what an incredible conservation project we're able to witness. We're here in Region 6, Block 15. And this is a large house by Pompeian standards, 1,100 square meters. Originally, there was a much older house here that was extensively restored in the Augustan period, removing the typical tiblinum or reception hall to be found in the atrium space. And then, with new ownership, it was redecorated by the Vetti-E after 62, when the earthquake that rocked the city. And we know from their names that they were freedmen, Aulus Vettius Conviva and Aulus Vettius Restitutus. And they're typically referred to as brothers, but they could have been freed at the same time from the Gaines Vettia that was living in Pompeii. Their names appear on site on bronze seals and graffiti throughout the house, which was excavated between 1894 and 1895. Much has been made of the decorative plan that they would have overseen, and many scholars have commented on their freedmen status and their tastes in art. Researchers typically define the frescoes that the Vetti commissioned as fourth style Pompeian wall paintings. What's important for us is that we explore these scenes that have underlying images of the justice of Jupiter king of the gods, countless scenes from daily life, and extraordinary myths depicting the divine reward of the gods, and their brutal punishment. Based on the street from the Castellum Aquae, you have the House of the Vetti, and this is truly a magnificent triumphal conservation work. It's a site that was closed for 20 years, and what's so impressive about it is the level of conservation. What's also impressive about it is that you have whole cycles preserved in situ. What normally happens with so many of the famous houses discovered from Pompeii is that you have those individual central panels ripped out and finding the way into private collections, finding their way into the Bourbon collections, and into the museum of Naples. Instead, we have by and large the majority of the artwork from top to bottom preserved on site, and at the end of 20 years of restoration, we have a triumph and an amazing experience that really is unparalleled for anywhere else in Pompeii. This is a site that's going to be open daily, and it's another example of the incredible work that's being done in Pompeii. So much of it now is geared toward the conservation work, and there's so much more of Pompeii that you can explore today, but this one, this site of House of the Vetti, is one that you must see. Let's explore the House of the Vetti. We enter through the fowl case, which would be the entry point into the house, and we are greeted by this figure, Priapus, the fertility god, who is often shown with an erect penis. Now, part of the reason that you have Priapus depicted as such is because he is a god of fertility, but he's also with the phallus warding off the evil eye, and then the owner, and the art program has now begun, it's also a way, not just of eliciting laughter from the guest and laughter wards off the evil eye, but it's also a way to measure in the value of the Vetti. The member of Priapus is being weighed on a scale against the bag of money, and the bag of money is associated with the god of commerce, Mercury, and that's a deity that's going to be frequently depicted throughout the House of the Vetti, along with Priapus. In fact, there's a marvel version of Priapus in the Peril style court in the back. So we have lots of themes repeated throughout the experience of the House of the Vetti. After the entryway, we're in the atrium space, and this is the main hall of any Roman house. So just past the entrance, you're stepping to a place which is grand and monumental. With the hole in the roof, we have the compluvium-impluvium section to gather and store the rainwater, and you've got a staircase that leads up to the upper floors, which are not preserved, and you have a whole series of beautifully decorated rooms surrounding the atrium space to accommodate guests even serving as cubica or bedrooms. You also have prominently in the atrium the remains of two strongboxes or treasuries once made in bronze, attesting to the wealth of the owners, and you also have several scenes of daily life, of slave attendance, of guests, of possibly the owners of the house. And on one side, you have the entrance into the area where slaves would be doing their work, managing the household, and in that space, there is the lararium, the household shrine, and on the other side, you have what has been identified as a winter triclinium. And here you have countless scenes of Jupiter and so many of his myths surrounding you as you dined, and the key background color is white. It is a glorious example of the level of restoration that we see in the house of the Vettii. Leaving the atrium space, we go to the first room off the peristyle court, and this is one of the most magnificent rooms in all of Pompeii. One of the greatest rooms in the house of the Vettii, look at those colors. It's a place reserved for dining. It's a triclinium room, and when we take a look at representations of dining, we see that people are reclining on the clean eye. There are three of them, and you d be served your meal by slaves, and you d be looking at the art and commenting on it. Well in this room, there is plenty to talk about. Number one, you have incredible framework for the main scenes. You have lots of little vignettes as well, but your attention would have been drawn to the three central panels. Let s take a look at the first one on the far wall that gives the name to the room, the Ixion room, and this is telling the story of Ixion, the king of the Lathats, and he was in love with Hera, and he was punished for trying to make love to the wife of Zeus, so he was deceived. Zeus created a cloud goddess, in the image of Hera, that Ixion made love to, and as a result, the offspring were the centaurs, but Ixion himself was sent down to the underworld, placed on a burning spinning wheel for all of eternity. Here s Mercury putting it in action, and this scene is the scene of deadless and pacify, and the story goes that Minas received a beautiful bull from the sea god Poseidon, but didn t sacrifice it, so he was punished in what way. His wife, pacify, became lustful after this bull and wanted to make love to it, so deadless the craftsman constructed a wooden cow that pacify could slip into, and then make love to the bull, and you see here in this scene, the actual wooden bull, you see pacify, you see deadless who s constructed and his son Icarus ultimately doomed to fly to close the sun and crash down into the sea, so you have lots of story threads that are being able to be drawn together just from one scene. This is the scene of Dionysus discovering Ariadne, who had been abandoned by Theseus. The Ariadne had helped Theseus defeat the Minotaur in the labyrinth in Crete, and that Minotaur was the offspring of pacify and the bull, so you have so many different connective threads and the overlying examination of the relationships between mortals and the gods and that interaction between them. But then before there is no Tablinum space off the atrium, this room, the oikus or reception hall for entertainment and dining, probably was the stand for the Tablinum space and it is magnificent. It s large and impressive, accommodating lots of people. One of the great standout features in this room is the small frieze that encircles the entire space. There are these wonderful mythological scenes of Cupid figures acting out scenes from real life, from making and selling floral crowns and garlands, to making perfumes from the extract of oil from flowers, to treating woollen cloth in the guise of fullers, and finally acting as companions of Dionysus. These are incredible windows into the real activities that took place in the city of Pompeii and Roman cities and quite possibly were attached to the work of the Vettii themselves. Now let s turn to the Peristyle, a garden space surrounded by columns. It was a place for having a stroll after a meal. It was a place to enjoy nature and this space today has been landscaped anew based upon a precious study of the environment and of course you have the remains of many marble artifacts including fountains and statuary and if you look down you can even see the extensive remains of lead piping. The walls surrounding the Peristyle are beautifully decorated as well and at the base of all the walls you have a continual rendering of plants alternated with fountains with water gushing up the top. House of the Vettii is extraordinary and it is attributed to the two Vettii brothers who come into quite a bit of fortune and what they do is they have extensive redecoration and the fresco cycles are some of the most interesting and the best preserved in all of Pompeii so what you have are incredibly rich details of mythological cycles. You have an incredible array of active cupids and scenes from daily life and you have overall an experience that brings you back in time to the time of the Pompeians right before the eruption of Asuvius in 79. In the Peristyle court of the House of the Vettii brilliant colors and scenes of daily life and then you have a beautifully reconstituted Peristyle garden with plantings and casts of the original statuary today in the museum in Naples makes for an incredible experience and what is also so special is the vibrant colors that are preserved in red and also yellow. Here we are in another fascinating triclinium space off the Peristyle court and the program of the mythological scenes is going to be very much related to those in the room of Ixion. We have a room with so many different myths it's exciting to have the attempt of Hera to kill baby Hercules with snakes but he strangled the snakes you have the graphic depth of Pentheus who denies the existence of Dionysus as a god he's torn apart by the worshippers of Dionysus you have the punishment of Dursi there's a marble version of this from the Pasacharacala in the Naples Museum. It becomes very obvious then with this brief examination of the House of the Vettii just how sophisticated the programmatic display was with statuary with the architecture and of course with the frescoes in so many other themes in the House of the Vettii focused on the punishment of those mortals that challenged the gods who disobeyed the gods hope you join us again for more exploration of the House of the Vettii and other houses of Pompeii there's so much more to explore in this wonderful ancient city. Hey I'm Darius Arya for Ancient Rome Live we bring you antiquity throughout the Mediterranean daily Pompeii Rome throughout the Mediterranean