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Times
On Line
Pompeii
frescoes rise from motorway
From Richard
Owen in Rome
January 18th, 2003
A SERIES of Pompeii frescoes that came to light
during the building of a motorway have gone on display in Rome after
two years of restoration.
The painted panels once adorned a
substantial palace, thought to have been a luxury hotel, in the
southern suburbs of Pompeii, which was overwhelmed by an eruption of
Vesuvius in AD79. They were removed for conservation from the site
of the motorway under construction between Naples and
Salerno.
The restored frescoes have been unveiled at
the newly completed Rome Auditorium, or concert hall. In March they
will go on permanent display at the Naples Archaeological
Museum.
Marisa Mastroroberto, an expert on classical
art who has studied the “hotel frescoes”, said that she was
particularly struck by one thought to show the god Apollo playing
the lyre. She believed that the fresco was a portrait of the young
Nero, perhaps about the time of his assumption of power in
AD54.
Other frescoes depict Calliope, the Greek muse of
epic poetry, and Urania, the muse of astronomy. Signora
Mastroroberto suggested that these could be depictions of members of
Nero’s family, including Agrippina, his mother, and Octavia, his
wife, both of whom Nero had murdered as he became increasingly
demented.
Antonio De Simone, the archaeologist who led
the motorway excavations, said that the building in which the
frescoes had been found had stood 600 metres outside the city walls.
It had probably been a restaurant and country hotel, complete with
thermal baths. The frescoes had decorated the main triclinium, or
dining room. Professor De Simone said that while the frescoes had
been rescued, the ruins of the hotel had been reburied so that work
on the motorway could continue.
Giuliano Urbani, the
Minister of Culture, said that there were plans to build a hotel
near the ruins of Pompeii, together with a museum at which visitors
would be able to don “virtual reality visors” to visit Pompeii as it
would have been at the height of its glory.
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