Tour Capri

The are pictures in the Fourth Style, ornamental, full of fantastic architecture with a rich variety of decorative elements, eniightened by pictures showing mythical and heroic subjects and eniivened by friezes and areas of exquisite miniature art. The decorations are ali of the same period except for a few areas, although painted by different artists that is, after the earthquake of 62 A.D., which badly damaged the buil-ding and some of the pictures in the house. Passing through the vestibule we can see an obscene pictu-re of Priapus resting his enormous phallus on one side of a pair of scales. This figure was placed at the entrance to the house to ward off the evil eye of those jealous of the wealth of the Vettiis. The atrium has had its roof restored which has reduced its size and also the light available at the sides are two strongboxes orcae. In the room to the left of the entrance hall, under a frieze of fish in a pond, there are two small pictures of little value Ariadne deserted and Hero and Leander. In the larger room, with a low, fiat ceiling, there are the following pictures Cyparissus, in despair after having mistakenly killed a favourite deer, being changed into a cypress tree Pan and Cupid fighting Jupiter enthroned and Leda and Danae. Two cubicles and two wings open off from the atrium. In the wing to the left there are panels showing a scene of fighting cocks, whilst in the wing to the right there are small medaliions showing the heads of Medusa and Silenus, with vigorous and expressive faces. From the atrium one passes, without the intermediate tablinum, into the beautiful peristyle with the garden.