The House of the Mosaic Atrium is a Roman domus of ancient Herculaneum, buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. It is named after its mosaic-paved atrium; explored through tunnels during the Bourbon investigations of the eighteenth century, it was brought to light in the twentieth century by Amedeo Maiuri's excavations.
What to see
The house covers about twelve hundred square metres and its main entrance is on cardo IV. The entrance passage has Fourth Style frescoes and a mosaic floor with geometric designs and stylised flowers. The atrium has a marble-lined central impluvium and a black and white chequerboard floor, with a double black frame round the basin; the mosaic appears deformed by the pyroclastic flows of the eruption, which also exposed remains of the walls of an earlier house. At the far end of the atrium, where the tablinum stood, opens what Maiuri considered an Egyptian oecus, the only example in the Vesuvian area: a dining room described by Vitruvius, divided into three aisles by two rows of stucco-covered pillars supporting the upper floor with clerestory windows, basilica-shaped and probably intended for guests.
From the atrium you pass into the peristyle, with a central garden and a marble-lined fountain fed by a castellum aquae near a side entrance; the colonnade on three sides has columns of opus listatum, with bricks alternating with tuff blocks, and in places the gaps between the columns were closed to form large windows. At the centre of the east side is the exedra, in Fourth Style, with a red dado, a blue middle zone with fantastic architecture and mythological scenes, of which the Punishment of Dirce and Diana and Actaeon survive, and a floor of opus sectile; beside it open four bedrooms frescoed in red. On the south side the triclinium has lost almost all its decoration.
Visiting
The house is part of the archaeological area of ancient Herculaneum: opening hours, tickets and the rooms open should be checked with the Archaeological Park.
Our editors' tip
From the triclinium a larger doorway leads to the terrace, built over the space of the old town walls and decorated in Fourth Style, with an opus sectile floor: at each end are two diaetae, small living rooms, which looked out to sea.
