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II. The Stanze di Venere at Baia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2011

Roger Ling
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Abstract

Among the remnants of interior decoration in the Roman Imperial palace at Baia are the stuccoed vaults of three rooms, the so-called ‘Stanze di Venere’, which attracted the attention of innumerable travellers and antiquaries during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The first and second rooms, respectively pavilion-vaulted and barrel-vaulted, retain enough of their stucco-work to justify a close study of design and subject-matter; while even in the third room, where only a few fragments survive, some figures and ornaments can be discerned. Further information about the decorations is supplied by unpublished drawings carried out in the early eighteenth century. Dating is difficult, but stylistic evidence suggests that the stucco-work of room 1, which belongs to the original phase of the complex, dates to Augustan times. The other two decorations are later, but no later than the Flavio-Trajanic period, for then or soon afterwards new structures were built at a higher level and the three rooms were turned into cisterns. The decorative programme in both 1 and 2 is primarily Dionysiac but also embodies references to the sports of the palaestra and to bathing, themes which lend weight to the idea that the chambers formed part of a bath-suite.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 106 , 1979 , pp. 33 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1979

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References

Notes

* The preparation of the final versions of the drawings was the work of the author, who accepts full responsibility for any shortcomings.

1 Generally on the history of Baiae, Beloch, J., Campanien, and edn. (1890), pp. 180 ff.Google Scholar

2 De Franciscis, A., Archaeology, XX (1967), 212, 215.Google Scholar

3 Uffizi 329 A N1097 v and 331 A N 1099 v. Cf. Weller, A. S., Francesco di Giorgio (1943), pp. 264, 265.Google Scholar

4 Rakob (for abbreviations see p. 60), pp. 115–17, 136.

5 P. Sarnelli, Guida de' forestieri curiosi di vedere e d'intendere le cose più notabili di Pozzuoli, Baja, Miseno, Cuma, ed altri luoghi convicini. Tradotta in francese, accresciuta, e di vaghe figure abbellita da A. Bulifon (1697), pp. 162–4.

6 D. A. Parrino, Nuova guida de' forestieri per l'antichità curiosissime di Pozzuoli … (1709), p. 23; J. C. Bellicard, Observations upon the Antiquities of the Town of Herculaneum Discovered at the Foot of Mount Vesuvius (1753), pp. 151 f., pl. 40; cf. C. N. Cochin and J. C. Bellicard, Observations sur les antiquités de la ville d'Herculanum (1754), pp. 91 f., pl. 38; F. Morghen, Gabinetto di tutte le più interessanti vedute degli antichi monumenti di Pozzuoli, Cuma, e Baja, e luoghi circonvicini … (1766), pl. 21; J. C. Richard de Saint-Non, Voyage pittoresque ou description des royaumes de Naples et de Sicile, i, 2 (1782), p. 216; G. D'Ancora, Guida ragionata per le antichità e per le curiosità naturali di Pozzuoli e de' luoghi circonvicini (1792), p. 101; Paolini, R., Memorie sui monumenti di antichità e di belle arti … (1812), pp. 45 f.Google Scholar; De Jorio, A., Guida di Pozzuoli e contorno (1817), p. 88Google Scholar; Panvini, P., Il forestiere alle antichità e curiosità naturali di Pozzuoli, Cuma, Baja e Miseno … (1818), p. 107Google Scholar; Palatino, L., Storia di Pozzuoli e contorni (1826), p. 83.Google Scholar It is by no means certain that all these writers, e.g. D'Ancora, Panvini, and Palatino, actually visited the rooms.

7 Auberson.

8 We have felt, however, that there is sufficient evidence to justify restoring certain details, such as the rectangular alcoves in room 1, which are not shown on Dottssa. Bertoldi's plan.

9 For initially suggesting this interpretation I am indebted to Dr. Ward-Perkins. It can hold good despite the presence of another room south of room 4: this fifth room, like room 4, could be an ‘afterthought'.

10 Archaeologia, xciii (1949), pls. XXXV, XXXVI.Google Scholar

11 For the term and the technique, Lugli, pp. 48, 634 ff.

12 At Pompeii and Herculaneum, public baths built in Republican or Augustan times (the Stabian and Forum Baths at Pompeii, the City Baths at Herculaneum) have circular frigidaria, while those built in Flavian times (the Central Baths at Pompeii, the Suburban Baths at Herculaneum) have circular laconica. But in all cases the caldarium is at least three times the size of the circular room.

13 The description below includes one or two details which had disappeared by the time the drawings were made. So, too, with room 2.

14 Farnesina stuccoes: Wadsworth, E. L., Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, iv (1924), 23–34Google Scholar, pls. I–IX. Via Laurentina stuccoes: Scavi di Ostia, iii: Le necropoli, i: Squarciapino, M. Floriani, Le tombe di età repubblicana e augustea (1958), pp. 87–91Google Scholar, fig. 44, pls. XIII (1, 2), XIV, XV. See further above, p. 55.

15 For the lampadedromia and its torches, Giglioli, G. Q., ‘La corsa della fiaccola ad Atene’, Atti della R. Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Rendiconti. Classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, V, 31 (1922), pp. 315–35. For rollers, Ling 1971.Google Scholar

16 On this rite see Matz, pp. 1400–5. If our scene indeed shows the revelation of the phallus, it has certain anomalous features, since Matz's evidence suggests that only women initiates turn away during the revelation, while boy initiates are associated with Silenus or satyrs rather than women.

17 Ling 1970, p. 177.

18 Maiuri, A., La Casa del Menandro e il suo tesoro di argenteria (1933). fig. 65.Google Scholar

19 Owing to problems of lighting and access, the drawings (figs. 8 and 9) are little more than sketches and in some details rest on conjecture.

20 Compare the flower-picking Psyches in the House of the Vettii at Pompeii: Reinach, pp. 94 (12, 13), 95 (1, 3, 4). A woman picking flowers may have appeared in the San Vito tomb at Pozzuoli: Ling 1970, p. 178 and pl. XXI a.

21 Ashby, T., ‘Drawings of ancient paintings in English collections’, P.B.S.R. vii (1914), 1–62.Google Scholar His descriptions of our thirty drawings (ibid., pp. 37–40) are often inaccurate. I am indebted to the Provost and Fellows of Eton College for permission to study and publish the drawings, and to Messrs. P. L. Strong and J. Potter, respectively Keeper and Deputy Keeper of the College Library and Collections, for their help on my visits to Eton. The full serial numbers in Ashby's catalogue are Eton IV ( = Topham drawings vol. vii, shelfmark Bn. 7) 2, 4–21, 23–33 (no. 3 is a mosaic ascribed to the Palazzo Mignanelli, and no. 22 is missing); and, in the measurements here given, the first refers to the height and the second to the width (frames excluded).

22 Ashby, art. cit., pp. 3–4.

23 Ibid., p. 5.

24 De Lorenzo, G., I Campi Flegrei (1909), pp. 117 ff.; Storia di Napoli, i. L'età classica (1967), fig. on p. 283.Google Scholar

25 Unpublished. Compare the similar group of Mars and Venus at the central point of a vault in the House of the Lovers at Pompeii (Not. Scav., 1934, p. 329 and pl. XII) and the couples on the walls of the Houses of the Dioscuri and the Vettii (Curtius, figs. 87, 94, 101, 102).

26 Alternatively, no. 28 might belong to D1 and no. 30 to D4.

27 The woman in analogous scenes is usually identified as Amymone (cf. Reinach, p. 34 (7)), but here the absence of a water-jug leaves the identification open. For Attic vasepaintings which may show Poseidon pursuing Amphitrite see Caskey, L. D. and Beazley, J. D., Attic Vase Paintings in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, ii (1954), pp. 92 f.Google Scholar

28 Bertoldi, M. E., Boll. d'Arte, lviii (1973), 38–40.Google Scholar

29 For the change of technique, Lugli, pp. 664 f. Examples of the older technique are listed ibid., pp. 679 f.

30 For a list of pavilion-vaults, ibid., p. 688. If one leaves aside the vault of our room 1, only the first two examples cited, both from the Rome area and both dated to the first half of the first century B.C., belong to square or rectangular rooms.

31 Ling, R. J., ‘Stucco decoration in pre-Augustan Italy’, P.B.S.R. xl (1972), 11–57.Google Scholar

32 See above, n. 14. For the dating of the Farnesina stuccoes, Beyen, H. G. in Studia Varia Carolo Guglielmo Vollgraff a Discipulis Oblata (1948), pp. 6–21.Google Scholar

33 Cf. Bastet, F. L., ‘Claudius oder Tiberius? Das grosse Hypogaeum bei der Porta Maggiore zu Rom', Bulletin van de Vereeniging tot Bevordering der Kennis van de Antieke Beschaving, XXXV (1960), 1–24. I accept Bastet's conclusions on the dating of the Basilica and related stuccoes but do not necessarily endorse all the arguments by which he reaches them.Google Scholar

34 I have elsewhere, mistakenly, accepted a Hadrianic date: Ling 1970, p. 181; Ling 1971, p. 270.

35 Rakob, chart opp. p. 134; Auberson, p. 168. See Maiuri, A., Boll. d'Arte, xxxvi (1951), 361, for the close relationship between the semi-dome complex and the ‘Temple of Venus’, whose Hadrianic dating is now generally accepted (Rakob, pp. 117 f., 133–5, with bibl.).Google Scholar

36 See Auberson, figs. 1 and 2.

37 Cf. Maiuri, U.F., passim (esp. pp. 201 f.), and the list of Campanian examples in Lugli, pp. 654 f.

38 I accept the dating of K. Schefold (W.P., pp. 2 f.; V.P., pp. 65, 104 f., 183) rather than that of H. G. Beyen (in Bericht über den VI. internationalen Kongress für Archäologie, Berlin, 21.–26. August 1939, p. 504; Antiquity and Survival, ii, 4 (1958), 352–5).Google Scholar

39 Spinazzola, pl. 166. On the dating of the decoration, Maiuri, U.F., p. 73.

40 Hovering swan: see, e.g., Schefold, V.P., pls. 81 (socle), 122 (upper wall), 131 (central part of wall), 133 (socle), 135 (upper wall), 141 (central part of wall). There are also many examples of similar swans shown perched rather than hovering. Satyr and bacchante: cf. p. 59 n. 25, and the examples illustrated in Reinach, pp. 141–3 (all of which, where datable, are Neronian or later). Hunting dogs: Reinach, pp. 303 (5), 305 (4, 6), 306 (2–4) (all of which, where datable, are Neronian or Vespasianic). Pompeii VI 8, 22 (House of the Large Fountain) contains examples of all three motifs—the swan, the bacchic dancers, and the hunting dogs (Schefold, W.P., p. 107).

41 For details of the decorations of the Pompeian baths, Spinazzola, pls. 165–6, 169–72, and for their dating to the last years of the city, Maiuri, U.F., pp. 70 f., 73. The Herculaneum arch is unpublished, but a post-earthquake date is suggested by its brick facing, a technique which seems to have been little used in the Campanian cities before the earthquake (Lugli, p. 594).

42 Matz, p. 1400.

43 On the trundling-hoop see Saglio, C. Daremberg-E, Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines d'après les textes et les monuments (1877–1919), s.v. Trochus.Google Scholar

44 Cf. Schefold, K., La peinture pompéienne (1972), p. 48, with reference to Petronius 83.Google Scholar

45 Cf. Schefold, op. cit., p. 90 n. 2. For the combination of marine and Dionysiac motifs, ibid., pp. 96 f.

46 For this interpretation and for an explanation of the symbolism, ibid., p. 168 note. Cf. Mau, A., Pompeji in Leben und Kunst, 2nd edn. (1908), p. 204.Google Scholar

47 Marine subjects in Pozzuolan chamber-tombs: Ling 1966, p. 31 and n. 47. On sarcophagi, Rumpf, A., Die Meerwesen auf den antiken Sarkophagreliefs (1939)Google Scholar (Die antiken Sarkophagreliefs, v, 1), pp. 17, 22 f., 134 (comments on the appropriateness of sea-monsters for the decoration of sarcophagi at Ostia and Pozzuoli). The triumphal arch is shown on a series of glass flasks from Pozzuoli: Enc. arte ant. vi, fig. 447; Archaeology, XX (1967), 213.Google Scholar

48 Brulloff, A., Les thermes de Pompéi (1829), pl. XGoogle Scholar; Not. Scav. 1927, p. 331, fig. 12. Such creatures are, however, included in mosaics and paintings from many centres; e.g. Reinach, pp. 369 (6), 370–2; Toynbee, J. M. C., Animals in Roman Life and Art (1973), pp. 212–14.Google Scholar

49 Swans: to the examples cited in p. 59, n. 40, we may add stucco reliefs in, e.g., the Forum Baths and Stabian Baths at Pompeii, the tombs of Fondo Caiazzo at Pozzuoli, the so called ‘Tomb of Agrippina’ at Bacoli, and the Baths of Sosandra at Baia. Reclining figures like ours appear, e.g., in the paintings of the House of Meleager at Pompeii (Schefold, V.P., pl. 98) and of a villa at Stabiae (Elia, O., Pitture di Stabia (1957), pl. XXXVI) and in the stuccoes of the Fondo Fraia tombs at Pozzuoli (Ling 1966, pl. X a), of the recently excavated four-way arch at Herculaneum (unpublished), and of the tomb of Vestorius Priscus at Pompeii (also unpublished, apart from an oblique view in Enc. arte ant. vi, fig. 381).Google Scholar

50 Fondo Caiazzo: unpublished. Stabian Baths: Curtius, fig. 115 (socle). San Vito: Ling 1970, pl. XXI d.

51 Naples inv. 9580.

52 Mingazzini, P. and Pfister, F., Surrentum (1946) (Forma Italiae, Reg. 1, vol. 2), fig. 23.Google Scholar

53 Not. Scav. 1927, pp. 328 f. and fig. 12 on p. 331.

54 Second half of first century A.D.: ibid., p. 329. H. Mielsch, Römische Stuckreliefs (see Postscript p. 58 above), pp. 84 f., 166, favours a Hadrianic date.

55 So the initiation scenes in Matz's catalogue (Matz, pp. 1392–3) come from works of art or decorations which were all, so far as we can judge, privately owned or commissioned. If the baths were indeed private, they may have formed part of a villa which was either built or later taken over by the emperors, as De Franciscis suggests (p. 34 and n. 2 above).

56 Athletes and bathers are generally shown individually or in multi-figure compositions. Where two-figure panels occur, they are normally isolated: I know of no other decoration where panels are arranged in a series—much less in a series containing pairs of female figures relaxing between sports. For athletes in painting and mosaic see, e.g., Reinach, pp. 278–83. In stucco, apart from the relief Naples 9580 cited above (p. 57), there are palaestra scenes in the Underground Basilica at Rome (Monumenti antichi pubblicati per cura della R. Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, xxxi (1926), fig. 9, pls. XVII, XVIII, XIX (2)) and individual athletes in at least four decorations.Google Scholar

57 For the other examples in stucco, Türk, G., Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, xii (1897), 86–9;Google Scholar and for examples in painting (including the panel in Pompeii IX 7, 16) and mosaic, ibid., pp. 89–91, pls. 4, 5; Reinach, p. 193 (2–4, 7–10).