After 20 years of restoration, the House of the Vettii, also nicknamed "the Sistine Chapel of Pompeii", reopened its doors on Tuesday.

Visitors to the famous archaeological site of Pompeii (Italy) will therefore be able to rediscover this impressive Roman villa, as well as its frescoes representing in particular twelve mythological scenes, its statues and its columns, reports

Geo

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According to the information available to historians, this villa would have belonged to two men who were potentially brothers, Aulus Vettius Conviva and Aulus Vettius Restitutus.

They would be two former slaves who, once freed, would have become rich thanks to the wine trade.

Their social trajectory would be relatively rare at that time.

In the eyes of Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the director of Pompeii, this villa therefore bears witness to “a level of social mobility that would have been unthinkable two centuries earlier”.

However, the place did not escape the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, which completely buried it in ash.


After la casa simbolo di Pompei, la casa dei Vettii, che non manca in nessuna guide del site UNESCO campano e in nessun manuale sull'arte antica, grazie ai suoi straordinari affreschi e alle sculture che adornavano il suo ampio giardino.

pic.twitter.com/sBPZfLV8ln

— Pompeii Sites (@pompeii_sites) January 10, 2023

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Restored frescoes

The House of the Vettii was then rediscovered at the end of the 19th century.

It has been restored on several occasions, but the use of paraffin by previous restorers had gradually made the frescoes blurry.

Thanks to extensive restoration work carried out over the past twenty years, the details of the frescoes are now fully visible again.

The place had been reopened for the first time in 2016 before closing its doors again in 2020 for a restoration of the frescoes, floors and columns.

On the occasion of this reopening, Arianna Spinosa, the architect in charge of the restoration works of Pompeii, declared that this villa "represents the Pompeian domus par excellence, not only because of the frescoes of exceptional importance, but also in due to its layout and architecture.

The place also has bathtubs and marble tables around its garden.

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