Not only Pompeii, but also Stabiae

The Reggia di Quisisana is the most ancient Bourbon royal site, commissioned by Charles III in a place with a particularly healthy climate.

In September 2020, this became the home of the Libero d’Orsi archaeological museum, dedicated to the suburban villas of Castellammare di Stabia. 

A great many villas were built in panoramic positions on the Varano plain at Stabiae, as Castellammare was called in ancient times. The buildings were mainly residential, with vast quarters, spas, arcades, and beautifully decorated nymphaea.

Villa San Marco covers 11,000 square metres and was one of the largest of  Stabiae’s residential villas. The museum displays many findings from this and other important dwellings like Villa del Pastore, the “Second Complex”, and Villa Arianna. 

Frescoes populated by classical gods and myths, floor mosaics, statues and precious marble craters prove the sumptuousness of these residences.

A kilometre as the crow flies from the famous Stabiae villas we find Carmiano, one of at least 45 rural villas on the ager stabianus, a territory divided into small estates suitable for the cultivation of vines and olives. Nowadays this is known as Gragnano.

The Carmiano villa has contributed a triclinium (dining room), completely rebuilt in the centre of the exhibition, decorated with Dionysian-themed paintings recalling the banquets that took place here. The countryside around the villa has brought forth winemaking cellars and equipment.

To complete the tour of a Roman home at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius, we proceed from the Reggia di Quisisana to the Antiquarium of Pompeii.

The city’s ruling classes lived in luxurious domus decorated with exquisite frescoes, triclinia, tables, tripods, braziers, stools, candlesticks, silverware, and refined furnishings of all kinds, intended to show guests how rich and refined their hosts were.