One of the most evocative monumental presences of Augustan Rome has been reconstructed, with its extraordinary wall paintings, stuccowork and mosaics, inside the rooms of the National Museum of Rome at Palazzo Massimo.
[Villa della Farnesina at Palazzo Massimo alle Terme. National Museum of Rome] One of the most evocative monumental presences of Augustan Rome was discovered by chance in March 1879 during construction work along the banks of the Tiber.
The exceptional nature of the find was immediately clear, especially due to the extraordinary wall decorations: frescoes, stuccowork and mosaics, which were quickly detached. Some have been dispersed, while others have recently been reorganized in the rooms of the National Museum of Rome at Palazzo Massimo.
The volume illustrates, with original photographs, a fundamental chapter in the history of Roman painting, the turning point between the last results of the late Republican era and the first examples of what was to come in the Augustan period. The new museum exhibits are illustrated and accompanied by a thorough text, leading readers through a domus from the end of the 1st century BC.