The Domestic Chestnut: Space, Place, and the Embodiment of Nature at Oplontis Villa A

Abstract

Villa A at Oplontis is among the most carefully studied and impressive examples of a Roman coastal luxury villa. Located on a cliff overlooking the Bay of Naples, only a few miles from Pompeii, the villa was initially constructed in the mid-first century BCE and destroyed in the 79 CE eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Over its nearly two-century lifespan, the structure expanded to include nearly one hundred excavated rooms, an array of wall paintings spanning three out of the four Pompeiian styles, and was sheathed and populated with architectural and sculptural decorative stone. As the villa developed, its natural environment formed a constant, if ever-moving, presence alongside its artificial sphere. In this dissertation, I seek to investigate the role of an activated and embodied nature in establishing and perpetuating the lived aesthetic experience of Villa A. In the first chapter I introduce the history of excavation and reconstruction at Villa A, focusing on the instability of the site when restricted to an architectural and artifactual view. I propose a closer investigation of the natural world as a way of accessing the lived experience of the villa as it stood in antiquity and introduce an emic conception of semi-sentient nature as an active participant in establishing the rhythms of daily life through a selection of Roman aristocratic texts. Finally, I look to postmodern theoreticians and scholars in the eco-critical humanities to bridge the modern binary between nature and culture and to conceptualize social relationships between humans and non-humans such as the elements of the natural world. Chapters two and three approach the villa from the two perspectives of space and place to tease out the role of the local environmental setting in establishing an outdoor orientation at the site. In chapter two, I discuss the use of 2D mapping as a priming tool in archaeology, before using a series of maps and diagrams to establish the villa’s relationship with its broader local topography and surrounding gardens. Together, these diagrams reveal the exterior orientation of the villa, with the bulk of the villa’s rooms able to connect at least indirectly (i.e. through a semi-open portico) with the outdoors and a network of airflow pathways that outnumber the human-accessible paths through the space. Chapter three is a place-based, phenomenological approach to the villa’s surrounding gardens geared towards gaining a better understanding of the effects of the bleeding edge between indoor and outdoor space at Villa A. In chapter four, I move within the structure to more fully investigate the interaction and penetration of elements of the natural world with and within the representational, decorative sphere. I look closely at the paintings in rooms, 5, 20, and 4—the atrium, an interior garden, and the room that links them, showing the ways that painters evoked not only the forms, but also the textures and patterns created by the natural world within the painted sphere. I reflect on the process of abstraction and creativity that derived from natural inspirations, and the paintings’ self-conscious play between mimesis and imaginative constructions. Throughout these chapters I demonstrate that the natural environment plays three roles at Villa A, as a co-designer, medium, and font of forms and textures that serves as a springboard for the imaginations of patrons and artisans. Without its ecological context, the Villa is incomplete.