User:Demilynnn/Boscotrecase

Changes Made
When first approaching this article, there was a lot of information already about the grounding of the villa. I added more information about Matteo Della Corte's floor plans and commissioned drawings which shows the villa from before it was buried again because of Mount Vesuvius's eruption. I expanded upon how his floor plan shows what the purpose was of each surviving room, and the division between the residential quarters and the slave quarters. I also found a book about the Egyptian influences in the Black Room, and how Della Corte's drawings hint at the idea that there were templates used for the Egyptian motifs throughout the villa.

In the original article I noticed cubiculum 20 was never named and through my research I discovered that it is also called the White Room. I added information about how it was oriented within the villa, and what decor may have adorned its walls. I also added a picture of one of the surviving candelabra panels.

The original article heavily focused on the frescoes, but in my research the mosaic floor tiles in the Black Room were also important in tying it to its function as a tricilinia. Material culture in the villa also wasn't discussed and I found two books that touched upon this: "Beyond Egyptomania" edited by M.J. Versluys and "Fundkonexte romischer Vesuvvillen im Gebiet um Pompeji" by Andreas Oettel. However, I was only able to find partial translations for the latter and could not properly translate the German on my own, so I utilized the research found in "Beyond Egyptomania." The artifacts found in the villa show different uses for each room over time, focusing on the later use of the Black Room for storage.

Finally, I made some minor additions to the lead noting a fairly recent discovery by the Harvard Art Museums that they had a fragment of the Mythological Room in their collection. Also, I added the name of the landowner that excavated the villa with Della Corte.

Lead
A fragment from the villa was discovered in the collection of the Harvard Art Museums in 2007. It was acquired in 1921 from Albert Gallatin.

Frescoes
In 1922, archaeologist Matteo Della Corte published a report about the villa including a partial floor plan. The residential area of the villa was designated to the left, oriented around the central peristyle. The slaves, horses, and farming equipment were on the right side in a separate court. A tile in the slave quarters dates it to 2 B.C., the year of Julia's exile and when an overseer would have taken over the villa from the imperial family.

It is speculated that the Black Room and the Red Room possibly served as triclinia, or dining rooms. The Mythological Room and the White Room were most likely cubicula, which served as places for rest. Artifacts found around the Black Room suggest that a later owner utilized it for agriculture, most likely as a storage room. The proximity of the room to the terrace, which connected the residential area to the slave quarters, would have made it ideal for storage. The villa's frescoes fall into the Pompeian Third Style of wall-paintings which were created during the imperial rule of Augustus. Key characteristics of the Third Style found in the villa were Egyptian imagery, mythological scenery, and intricate ornamentation.

The Black Room
The pinakes share stylistic similarities with Egyptian funerary illustrations, and similar iconography is echoed in both. The Sobek pinake was most likely replicated iconography in the other cubiculum in either the dados or upper walls. Matteo Della Corte's commissioned drawings of the frescoes show that the Sobek icons were mirrored, suggesting that a pattern-book was used in the creation of the Egyptian figures.

There was a mosaic on the floor that did not survive, though its dimensions were recreated by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Della Corte's plan of the villa showed nine white hexagons that created a 92 centimeter square in the center of the floor. Black tesserae and white mosaic tiles support the idea that this room was used as a triclinia for dining and entertainment purposes. A couch would have been placed in the room that would allow for guests to view only one wall painting at a time from a lower perspective.

The White Room
This room, cubiculum 20, is situated left of the Mythological Room. Both rooms had entryways that led to a shared corridor between the two rooms. Thymiateria which burned incense were placed on both sides of the room's southern entrance.

Boscotrecase article

Future Research
I think there is still room for improvement in terms of discussions about the material culture of the villa. I would recommended Oettel's "Fundkonexte romischer Vesuvvillen im Gebiet um Pompeji" which situates the Pompeiian villas within the context of the artifacts that were discovered there, although he does acknowledge that rampant excavation and removal of artifacts has caused a lot of important context to be lost. Also, he looks at the villas within the context of the Roman grid system and how each played a part in an overall urban design of the town. Also, it would be good to look at Matteo Della Corte's "Notizie degli Scavi" which were his notes on the villa's excavation. However, it is in Italian and hard to find so that may be an obstacle in terms of accessibility not only for the researcher but also for the average person who is using Wikipedia.