La maison du poète tragique à Pompéi
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Pompeiana
Description de William
Gell, in Pompeiana (1832)
Plate 38 -
Commentary
Discovered at
the close of the year 1824.
Of all the habitations of private individuals yet discovered at Pompeii, the
house, to which the name of the Tragic Poet has been given, has excited the
most lively interest in the public mind ; and this, not so much from its
magnitude, which would scarcely place it among the homes of the richer
citizens, but on account of the paintings and mosaic with which it was
decorated.
A reference to the plan, plate XXXV, will explain the distribution of the
apartments and their dimensions. If the two rooms, situated on each side of
the vestibule or entrance, were shops, the doors connecting them with the
same vestibule, contrary to the general custom, would seem to indicate that
the proprietor was concerned in some sort of trade. This species of chamber
was called apotheca by the Greeks, and taberna by the Romans ; but, if the
wide openings toward the street be not certain indications of a shop, it does
not seem impossible that the rooms might have been occupied by the servants
of the family.
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Plate 35 - Commentary
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On the pier left of the door was written in red characters
M. HOLCONIVM.
AED
C. GAVINIVM
This inscription, unfortunately, gives no information with regard to the
proprietor of the house. The three following are scratched with a nail on the
outer wall ; and the first, which is reversed in the original, seems to offer a
puzzle to the passenger :
The following letters are on the pier at the angle of a house forming,
with this of the poet, the entrance of the vicus of the
fullonicae.
A learned Neapolitan has translated the Etruscan part of this
inscription. He says it signifies, «You shall hear a poem of Numerius». To one
unskilled in the language, it appears to be the name of an owner of the house,
and might be M. P. Cepius. The doors turned upon pivots in two umbilici of
bronze fixed into a marble threshold, the outer part of which rose about an
inch above the rest. This, with two door-posts of wood, also fixed in holes in
the marble, served to maintain the door in its position when shut.
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Vignette 17 - Commentary
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On entering,
the first object is a black dog spotted with white, represented on the
pavement in mosaic, collared and chained, and in the attitude of barking. The
collar is of red leather. Below the animal is inscribed, in very legible
characters, CAVE CANEM, a sentence, probably, not uncommonly placed at the
entrance of Roman houses, as we learn from a passage of Petronius Arbiter :
«Canis ingens catena vinctus, non longe ab ostiarii cella in pariete erat
pictus, superque quadrata littera scriptum CAVE, CAVE CANEM».
Below the inscription may be observed a hole in the pavement for the
reception of the rain water which might chance to enter from without, much in
the same manner as we find a similar orifice under the doors and windows in
modern Italy, where it is thought easier to lead the water out again into the
street than to prevent it from entering at all.
The dog seems to have been placed as a sort of guardian of the porta antica,
or front door.
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The passage entry, or vestibule, is about six feet wide, and nearly
thirty in length ; and a curtain, or door, may have been placed at the entry of
the atrium. Statues could not have existed in this vestibule, as
they are said by Saint Augustine, De Civ. Dei (IV, 8), to have
done in Roman houses. He says that three gods guarded the doors : «Forculum
foribus, Cardeam cardini, Limentinum limini». These protectors of doors,
hinges, and thresholds might have been painted on the wall ; but, as yet, no
traces of them have been observed in the habitations of Pompeii.
The atrium is about twenty-eight feet in length by twenty,
with its impluvium near the centre, under which was a cistern
whence the water might be drawn through a fluted hollow cylinder of marble.
The floor is prettily paved with white tesserae, spotted, at
intervals, with black ; and, round the impluvium, is a
well-executed interlaced pattern, also in black.
The following inscription on a slab of marble is said to have been found in
this atrium on the 5th of March, in the year 1825. There seems
to have been nothing to afford room for a conjecture as to how it came there.
It might, perhaps, have been thrown into an excavation which the ancients
themselves seem to have made in this spot, or have fallen from an upper wall.
L. CAECILIVS .
FELIX
Q. LOLLIVS. FELIX
Q. ARRIVS. HIERONI
sic pro minist. MINIT. AVGVST
EX DD JVSSV
M. POMPONI. MARCELI.
VALERI FLACCI
D.V.J.D
A. PERENNI MERVLINI
L. OBELLI LVCRETIANI
D.V.V. A. S. P.P.
C. CAESARE L. PAVLLO
COSS
Perhaps, as the inscription does not seem to allude clearly to the owner
of the house, its chief merit may consist in having been engraved in the first
year after the birth of our Saviour, about 753 years after the building of
Rome, when Caius Julius Coesar and Lucius Aemilius Paullus were consuls.
On the left, on quitting the vestibule, yet remain the legs and part of the
body of a beautiful Venus painted in tempra, or distemper, upon the wall. The
colouring is quite that of Titian, and the attitude not unlike that of
the Venus dei Medici. One hand is held up over the head, and
supports a light, undulating blue drapery. On the ground is a dove and the
myrtle branch, the emblems of the goddess. More of this exquisite painting
might, possibly, have been preserved by greater tare in excavating, though the
plaster, in many parts, adhered but slightly to the wall.
Still proceeding to the left, the first small chamber is painted of a yellow
colour with black pilasters ; and, from this, a narrow stair-case ascended to the
upper story of the house.
That an upper floor was usual at Pompeii may be proved by the frequent
staircases, and the remains of the painted walls of the upper rooms, above the
holes for placing the beams over the lower apartments ; while the slight construction
of these walls renders very improbable the existence of any still superior
chambers, though Juvenal remarks, Sat. III., that the houses very commonly fell
with a tremendous crash. During the excavation, the fragments of the mosaic
pavement of the upper floor, with a head of Bacchus, were discovered in this
house ; and, what is curious, considering the evident indications of a previous
examination of the place, probably not long after the fatal eruption, several
articles of value were found, which appeared to have fallen from above.
This circumstance gave rise to the idea that the house must have belonged to a
jeweller, or rich goldsmith, and nothing yet observed tends materially to
invalidate the opinion ; for, except the mosaic, there is nothing peculiarly
devoted either to poetry or tragedy in the mansion. All the other houses of
Pompeii were decorated with paintings of mythological or heroic subjects,
because, in fact, the poets and painters seldom sung or painted any other.
The position of the house must have been easily ascertained by the survivors
after the catastrophe, from its proximity to the thermae, the
arches of which, as well as the dome of the piscina, resisted the
weight of the volcanic matter ; and the riches of the proprietor were naturaily
the incentives to the research which followed, and of which the vestiges were
so apparent.
The unfortunate proprietors were, probably, among the victims of the eruption,
for skulls, or the fragments of them, were found on the spot ; and a variety of
trinkets were considered as the indications of the toilet, or dressing-box, of
the lady of the house.
Among these were remarked two necklaces of gold ; a twisted gold cord ; four
bracelets, one weighing seven ounces, and formed into serpents ; a child's
necklace ; two small bracelets ; four earrings, and an engraved stone mounted
in a large ring. Two coins, also of gold, were found.
Forty-two silver coins, a bracciere for fire, and a variety of utensils of
bronze and earthenware, formed part of the riches of this house, after the
ancient excavators had already searched the place.
In one of the adjoining houses of refreshment, the skeleton of an unhappy
proprietor was also discovered. He had, in vain, sought shelter under a
staircase of stone, where he was probably suffocated. His treasure was found
near, and consisted of rings of gold, with earrings of the same metal, together
with about 140 coins of brass and silver.
It has usually been agreed, that, in Roman houses, the lower or ground floor
was appropriated to the master of the house, and to the more magnificent
apartments, while the upper was occupied by the servants. In a Greek house, as
we learn from the celebrated oration of Lysias, they were changeable ; and,
possibly, they were so in the habitations of Pompeii, which are, with
difficulty, reducible exactly to the rules given by Vitruvius for the houses of
either people.
Euphiletes, the client of Lysias the celebrated orator, had a house consisting
of two floors ; the lower usually occupied by the males of the family, and the
upper serving as a gynecaeum, or apartment for the women and children. On some
occasion, for the convenience of nursing, the uses of the apartments were
changed ; and Sostratus, a friend of Euphiletes, is mentioned particularly as
having gone up stairs even to supper, the nurse and child being always below.
The wife slept, at night, with the husband above. One night, the nurse, having
concealed in a lower room the lover of the wife, pinched the child till its
cries were heard by the parents. Euphiletes, surprised at the inhumanity of his
wife, who at first seemed unwilling to attend to the child, ordered her to get
up and go to its assistance ; but, observing that, as she went out, she
cautiously turned the key and locked him into his room, and having, on former
occasions, heard the street-door open while she was absent, he suspected there
might be some mystery in the business, though he had been always told that the
noise was occasioned by his wife going to a neighbour's for a light, as the
lamp below had gone out, and the child wanted help. Having found means to open
his door, Euphiletes went out, unperceived, in search of Sostratus, his friend,
leaving the street-door ajar, that he might re-enter at pleasure to detect the
culprits, who were, accordingly, surprised by the breaking open of their
chamber.
This description of facts seems such as might have taken place in a house like
this at Pompeii ; and, from the absence of all privacy during the day, it seems
scarcely credible that the apartment of the females could have been on the
ground floor in the house of the Tragic Poet, or, perhaps, any other in the
city. When the porta antica, or great door, was opened, every
one from the street could see nearly all that passed, except in the triclinium of
Leda, which was, in its turn, completely exposed from the other street on
opening the porta postica ; so that the females of the family
could have had no retreat except, like Penelope, they inhabited the upper rooms
of the house.
It is very probable that the custom of closing the doors was also at least as
unfrequent in ancient as in modern Italy. The houses, however, were so
contrived, that the sun could generally shine through the compluvium into
the atrium, or cavaedium, an advantage not possessed by the houses
of the present day, where the court is usually darkened and rendered damp by
the height of the surrounding buildings. This species of construction must have
rendered the houses of the ancients more habitable during the winter whenever
the sun was visible ; but, notwithstanding all that may be said or imagined of
the mildness of the climate, the want of fire and of chimneys must have reduced
the ancient, as it does the modern inhabitants of Italy, to enduring, under
additional clothing, that state of discomfort and cold damp which is always
produced whenever the sky is overcast, between the months of October and April.
The climate of Pompeii is, however, particularly genial
during the winter ; and, if the sun be visible, the situation is such as to
mitigate the severity of the season, while the heat of summer is agreeably
tempered by the sea-breeze, which is almost periodical.
From the angle of the atrium, near that sort of cubiculum or
chamber which contains the staircase, nearly the whole of the house is visible,
and that spot has accordingly been chosen for the view given in plate XXXVI.
The impluvium, with its border of mosaic, is seen in the
foreground. On the right side is the entrance into a small cubiculum.
On the right of that door is the invaluable picture of Achilles restoring
Briseis to the heralds, who were to reconduct her to her father.
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This is,
perhaps, the most beautiful specimen of ancient painting which has been preserved
to our times ; and it has been the means of awakening the attention of
artists and of the public to the hitherto depreciated merit of the masters of
antiquity. - Vide plate XXXIX. The size of this painting is four feet wide by
four feet two inches high.
The scene seems to take place in the tent of Achilles, who sits in the
centre. Patroclus, with his back toward the spectator, and with a skin of
deeper red, leads in, from the right, the lovely Briseis arrayed in a long
and floating veil of apple-green. Her face is beautiful ; and, not to dwell
on the archness of her eye, it is evident that the voluptuous pouting of her
ruby lip was imagined by the painter as one of her most bewitching
attributes. Achilles presents the fair one to the heralds on the left ; and
his attitude, his manly beauty, and the magnificent expression of his
countenance are inimitable.
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Plate 39
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The tent seems to be divided by a drapery about breast-high, and of a sort
of dark bluish-green, like the tent itself. Behind this stand several warriors,
the golden shield of one of whom, whether intentionally or not on the part of
the painter, forms a species of glory round the head of the principal hero.
It is, probably, the copy of one of the most celebrated pictures of antiquity.
When first discovered, the colours were fresh, and the
flesh, particularly, had the transparency of Titian. It suffered much and
unavoidably during the excavation, and something from the means taken to
preserve it, when a committee of persons qualified to judge had decided that
the wall on which it was painted was not in a state to admit of its removal
with safety. At length, after an exposure of more than two years, it was
thought better to attempt to transport it to the Studii at Naples, than to
suffer it entirely to disappear from the wall. It was, accordingly, removed,
with success, in the summer of the year 1826, and it is hoped that some remains
of it may exist for posterity.
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The painter has
chosen the moment when the heralds, Talthybius and Eurybates, are put in
possession of Briseis, to escort her to the tent of Agamemnon, as described
in the first book of the Iliad, and thus translated by Pope :
Patroclus now the unwilling beauty brought.
She in soft sorrows and in pensive thought
Pass'd silent as the heralds held her hand,
And oft look'd back, slow moving o'er the strand.
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Plate 40
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The head of Achilles is so full of fire and animation that an attempt has
been made to introduce a fac-simile of it in plate XL. Though a fac-simile, as
far as being traced with transparent paper from the original can render it so,
it gives but a very imperfect idea of the divinity which seems to animate the
hero of the painting.
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On the left of the door of the cubiculum is another
picture, but, unhappily, so much defaced that even the subject, at first,
seemed doubtful ; but the picture of Briseis quickly suggested the
restoration of Chryseis to her father, also described in the first book of
the Iliad in these lines :
Meanwhile Atrides launch'd with numerous
oars
A well-rigg'd ship for Chrysa's sacred shores
High on the deck was fair Chryseis placed,
And sage Ulysses with the conduct graced :
Safe in her sides the hecatomb they stow'd,
Then swiftly sailing cut the liquid road.
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Plate 37 - Commentary
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What remains of it may be observed in plate XXXVII, on the right, where,
under a blue sky, is seen a female in long robes, whose hands are kissed by
children, while an elderly person looks on from the right, and, on the left,
under a red portal, an armed man, with helmet and plume, is seen behind the
principal figure. The chief personage seems to be stepping on board a galley,
and, without doubt, the picture represented Chryseis returning to her own
country from the Grecian camp, while Ulysses and the heralds are assisting at
the embarkation ; though some have supposed it to have represented Andromache,
with her infant son, going into slavery after the destruction of Troy. The
decay of the painting renders abortive any speculation on the subject of the
execution, or even of the conception of the picture.
To the left of this picture is the ala, a species of recess,
possibly once furnished with seats ; but of which, either here, or in any other
house, no vestige upon the colouring of the wall bas been observed, though
furniture could scarcely have been placed against a wall without leaving some trace
on the painting.
To the left of this is the faux, or passage to the inner court,
scarcely more than three feet in width, and always so near and so visible from
the tablinum, that nothing could pass without being seen by the
family.
We next observe the tablinum itself, so called from being
closed with planks or shutters, and, beyond it, the inner court, with its Doric
columns, between which is seen a wall painted as a blue sky ; while, below it,
the tops of trees are visible over the parapet, representing alto gether a
scene in the country or a pseudo-garden.
In the aedicula, on the left, was probably placed the statue of a
Faun or a Bacchus, which was found near the spot, carrying fruits and flowers.
Between the columns ran some species of balustrade, as the holes for fixing it
inform us, rendering the area, or hypaethrum, a sort of sanctuary,
probably planted with choice flowers.
To assist in forming an idea of the pleasing effect
produced by the houses of Pompeii, plate XXXVII has been introduced. It is
traced upon the view n° 36, which was executed mechanically, and, therefore,
cannot fail in correctness. The roof only has been added, and that of the most
simple kind, formed by a rectangular intersection of beams. The ornements are
those which remain on the spot, or are taken from others in similar situations.
The introduction of draperies, furniture, and the doors or shutters,
called volubiles, might have rendered the drawing more picturesque
; but even curtains have been very sparingly adopted, in order to exclude as
much as possible the introduction of imaginary ornament. It may not be amiss to
add, when every thing is disputed, that the iron rods, on which curtains, or
draperies, were suspended from column to column, have lately, in the year 1828,
been discovered perfect in a new excavation at Herculaneum.
Plate 41
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The atrium hoasted
other pictures, of which only fragments exist ; but one, nearly perfect, on
the right of the entrance, remains to be described. Vide plate XLI. Some have
supposed that this represented the return of Helen to Menelaus, and have
amused themselves by discovering, in the countenances, expressions excited by
that event. Some have considered this painting as representing the moment
when Thetis complains to Jupiter of the injustice done to Achilles ; and this
seems the most rational idea, and one with which her countenance, and every
other circumstance correspond : but others, again, have imagined that they
discovered in the picture the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, and perceived,
in the expression of the Nereid, the reluctance with which she is reported to
have consented to a mortal alliance.
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The heads and the drapery are fine, but the picture, altogether, is far
inferior in beauty to that of Achilles. Fate had fixed that the son of Thetis
should excel his father, in consequence of which the nymph was no longer sought
in marriage by the Gods, and was compelled to marry Peleus, as the first of
mortals. The ring on her finger is remarkable, because rings were invented from
a circumstance connected with Thetis. The tradition relates that Jupiter,
wishing to release Prometheus, who was bound to a rock for a certain number of
years, was prevented by his oath. Prometheus, however, having shown how the
difficulty with regard to the son of Thetis might be overcome, by her marriage
with a mortal, had merited restoration to divine favour. This could only be
done consistently with the oath, by making a ring in which was set a piece of
the rock of Caucasus, always to be worn by Prometheus, who thus remained, in a
manner, perpetually chained to the rock.
Opposite to the painting of Achilles is a sea-piece, which, though now almost
unintelligible, might, at first, be recognised as the flight of Daedalus, or
rather the fall of Icarus.
A winged sea-god, on a dolphin, seems to be assisting, with his trident, the
unfortunate adventurer ; and the execution of the piece, though less laboured
than some of the other paintings, possesses a breadth which, probably, rendered
it a beautiful picture when the colours were fresh and brilliant. An idea of it
is given in the base of the Frontispiece.
A small chamber, also on the left of the atrium, is remarkable on
account of its singular frieze, upon which, on a white ground, is represented
in colours the combat of the Greeks and Amazons. The figures are sketched with
an incomparable freedom of hand, which gives them every appearance of
originality ; though the subject was so often repeated by the ancients, that,
without enumerating the paintings on vases, and the frequent recurrence of the
Amazons at Rome, the author has observed the same scene represented, without
much deviation, on various marbles both in Greece and Ionia. The frieze of the
Athenian Temple of Minerva Nike is well known in England ; that of Diana
Leucophryne, at Magnesia on the Maeander,consisted of the same personages : the
internal frieze of the Temple of Apollo at Bassae was, in part, composed of
them ; and a large fragment near Amyclae proves that they constituted one of
the principal ornaments of a temple in that neighbourhood.
The heroines of Pompeii differ, however, from those hitherto observed in Greece
; being mounted in chariots, and armed with bows, as well as with their
peculiar baffle-axes and shields. They are clothed in draperies of blue, green,
and purple, and are represented in strong, or perhaps rather extravagant action
; often pursuing the Greeks, but sometimes falling beneath their blows, while
the victory seems, as yet, doubtful. In the frieze of the frontispiece of this
work many of these figures are seen, which may suffice for a general idea of
the combat. An Amazon, whose horse is falling, and who, though wounded herself,
yet retains her seat, is a masterpiece of attitude, however negligently the
picture may be touched.
In the same chamber is a picture, generally supposed to have been obscene ; but
it is either so much effaced, or was so carelessly executed, that it may,
possibly, have been intended to represent a person supporting a dead or fainting
female. It is singular that, in many cases, though a picture be not ill
preserved, and may be seen from the most convenient distance, a style of
painting has been adopted, which, though calculated to decorate the wall, is by
no means intelligible on a nearer approach.
In a chamber, near the entrance of the chalcidicum, by the statue
of Eumachia, is a picture in which, from a certain distance, a town, a tent,
and something like a marriage ceremony, might be perceived ; but which vanished
into an assemblage of apparently unmeaning blots, so as to entirely elude the
skill of an artist who was endeavouring to copy it at the distance of three or
four feet.
Another picture of the same kind is, or was, visible in
the chamber, of the Perseus and Andromeda. An entire farmyard, with animals, a
fountain, and a beggar, seemed to invite the antiquary to a doser inspection,
which only produced confusion and disappointment, and proved that the picture
could not be copied except by a painter possessing the skill and touch of the
original artist. It is probable that those who were in the habit of painting
these unreal pictures had the art of producing them with great ease and
expedition ; and that they served to fill a compartment where greater detail
was judged unnecessary (1).
In the chamber of the Amazons is also a painting of Europa and the Bull.
These cubiculi are all about twelve feet in height, and have
been covered with six small beams, on which were suspended the floors of the
upper chambers. The doors appear, generally, to have had two valves, as may be
seen by the sockets in the thresholds for two umbilici on which they turned,
and two holes, in the centre, for bolts.
From the atrium a narrow corridor,
or faux, communicated with the peristyle, or inner court, between
which and the atrium was also situated the chamber called
the tablinum, which should occupy, according to Vitruvius,
two-thirds of the width of the atrium. In this the wall on the left
presents a variety of singular and fanciful architectural ornaments, such as
pillars with human heads for capitals, sustaining capricious entablatures, not
destitute of picturesque effect, an idea of which may be formed by observing
the frontispiece.
Plate 44
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On the right
is a large picture, generally little esteemed, by connoisseurs, for its
execution, but producing a good whole, and represented in plate XLIV of this
work. It is more particularly described in the account of the engravings. The
wall is adorned, also, with a variety of other ornaments, some of which have
been adopted in the frontispiece. Swans, goats, lions, and singularly
capricious architecture and variety of colour constitute here, as throughout
Pompeii, the fanciful and lively decorations. The opposite wall is
differently, yet not less fantastically covered with still more imaginary,
but not inelegant, porticos and erections. A door, entering into a cubiculum,
in which, among other objects, we find a cock painted with the caduceus of
Mercury, supplies the place of a picture. This tablinum might
be imagined a dark charnber, and that it received only a reflected light from
the atrium and peristyle ; and, in the restoration, its
proper effect has not, perhaps, been given ; but Vitruvius explains the
circumstance, clearly showing that the tablinum was to be
higher than the atrium, in order that the light might enter
through the windows above.
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The inner peristyle, enclosing a sort of court, probably planted with
flowers, and sometimes called a viridarium, consists of Doric
columns, standing upon a sort of podium, painted, like the lower
part of the pillars, red. The capitals have a fanciful moulding in the echinus,
also coloured with the saine. In the garden a tortoise had been kept, and the
shell of the animal was found on the spot.
At the same time several frogs were discovered in terra
cotta, evidently hollowed so as to serve for spouts to the roof of the portico.
The opposite wall was painted with trees and sky. The tablinum had
evidently been closed on this side with doors or shutters, which were of the
kind called volubiles, or with many folds, as they are now frequently made in
England, but, on the side next the atrium, if other means of
shutting up the apartment existed, than the use of a curtain, the shutters
could only have been supported by wood-work attached to the wall, as the
threshold retains no sign of the hinges or fastenings.
Plate 43
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On the left
of the peristyle are two cubiculi, one of which has been called
the library, from a circular painting with books and the implements for
writing, and of which more will be said at the close of this work. The other
contains the picture of Ariadne, given in plate XLIII. On the same side is
also a postern, or back entrance to the house, from a vicus, or
alley, into which the windows of the cubiculi opened.
Near the column, at the angle on the right, is a cylinder of lead, into
which, it appears, the min from the roofs was conducted.
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Against the wall stood a little shrine, in or near which was found a
small statue, which was thought to represent either a young Bacchus, or a faun.
On the right of the faux, at the entrance, were a kitchen and the
latrina, which usually are near together. The remainder of that side was
occupied by the Chamber of Leda.
The apartment which has acquired the name of the Chamber of Leda, from a
painting on one of its walls, is the largest, which can be called a room, in the
house of the Tragic Poet, being little short of twenty feet square, and of
considerable height. It has been painted in the most glaring shades of red and
yellow, and, in the centre of each compartment, there has been a picture of
considerable merit.
One, almost defaced, contains a beautiful Cupid, most gracefully leaning on the
knees of Venus, to whom Adonis seems to be ad-dressing himself.
Another exhibits Ariadne sleeping on the margin of the sea, with that sort of
glory encircling her head which can scarcely be intended to represent a blue
hat in many of the paintings at Pompeii. The faithless Theseus, under the
guidance of Minerva, who is visible in the clouds, is, in the mean time,
embarking, attended by his companions. Loth these paintings are much defaced,
so that it is difficult to judge of their execution, but the composition of
this last has not much merit.
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Plate 48 - Commentary
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The picture
of Leda, plate XLVIII, presenting her infant progeny to Tyndareus, is one of
the most beautiful productions of ancient art, and is not only estimable for
the elegance of its design and composition, but, as far as can be judged, it
excels the generality of other specimens in chastity and harmony of colour.
It has not made the impression which its merit ought to have produced on the
minds of those who are oflicially interested in the discoveries at Pompeii,
but, on the expression of that opinion on the subject, it was pleasing to
learn that Thorwaldsen had regarded this picture with that admiration which
grace and nature must ever inspire in a real artist.
Mythologists have attributed to this princess not only her daughters Timandra,
Clytaemnestra, and Philonoe, by her husband Tyndareus, King of Lacedaemon,
but Castor, Pollux, and Helen, the offspring of Jupiter, produced from two
eggs, one of the Dioscuri and the wife of Menelaus having been born in the
same shell.
This story has been differently related, and Helen has, by some, been
supposed to be the child of Jupiter and Nemesis confided to the care of Leda
; but the Greek word for an egg, and that for an upper apartment, are so
similar, that the circumstance seems to require little further explanation.
M. Selvaggi observes that the Scholiast on Tzetzes says that Jupiter caused
Nemesis to lay three eggs, which, being placed in a larnax in the care of
Leda, produced Castor, Pollux, and Helen. The children, in allusion to the fable,
are here represented in their nest, which the mother holds gracefully in one
hand, while she caresses them with the other.
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A curious change often takes place in the colours of these pictures,
after they have been some time exposed to the air.
M. Zahn, an artist of merit, who copied this painting of Leda only a few days
after its discovery, states that the drapery of that princess was green lined
with blue, and that the robe of Tyndareus was black lined with green. Behind
Leda was an attendant in a green garment ; the habit of the person with the bow
was yellow, and that of the last figure on the right hand green. It is
difficult to reconcile this account with its appearance about a month
afterwards, when the robe of Leda was red, and that of Tyndareus purple, and
both have remained so from that period to the present hour.
The landscape is much faded in the back ground. The red
usually changes to black, and the wall, with the picture of Leda, had, in the
course of a year's exposure, assumed a darker hue in consequence.
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The wall
itself is given in plate XLVII, and, if possible, as much of its gaudy and
glaring colouring will be preserved as will suffice to afford a just idea of
the decorations of the apartment. The taste may seem extravagant in a small
drawing, but is less so when seen on a larger scale.
The openings represented in the wall, through which the transparent
atmosphere and capricious architectural decorations are discovered, have a
pleasing and striking effect. In these we are presented with the roof, or
ceiling, and the opening of the impluvium ; and, in the
original, they are of a size sufficient to leave no doubt as to the
appearance from the atrium of this important feature, which
was decorated, like the eaves of external roofs, with its ornemental antefixes.
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Plate 47
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The lower part of the wall was decorated with garlands, sea-horses, and
other ornaments, on black panels. The floor of the room is mosaic.
This chamber of Leda is prettily paved in mosaic, and is
nineteen feet long by eighteen feet six inches wide. In its present state it is
sufficiently lofty, and there can be little doubt that it had, like the
other tablinum, a row of small windows which admitted light above
the roof of the peristyle.
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It is
impossible to conclude the account of the house of the Tragic Poet without
speaking of the beautiful mosaic picture, plate XLV, on the floor of
the tablinum.
It is the best and largest mosaic, deserving the name of a picture, which has
yet been discovered, and represents, on a black ground, an Ionic colonnade
decorated with shields, festoons, and fillets, in front of which an elderly
person seated seems to superintend the distribution of masks and dresses to
the performers of the theatre. Two youths, on the left, seem already provided
with a scanty savage dress of goat-skips ; a person, near the centre, plays
the double flute, while his habit is adjusted by an attendant behind ; and
another is pulling over the head of a comedian a sort of shirt adapted to his
character. It is said that many of the Neapolitan academicians believed that
the story of Apollo and Marsyas was represented in this mosaic, and that the
vanquished musician is suspended by the feet to the pillars. If that be the
opinion of a numerous and respectable society, it is right to mention it,
though it does not seem warranted by the picture. This mosaic is defective at
the angle on the right, but is, nevertheless, invaluable.
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Plate 45
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It has, probably, contributed not a little in giving to the house the
name it bears, and, when it is taken in connexion with the other pictures of
the poet reading, and the heroic and tragic subjects which are found in all
parts of the habitation, few will, perhaps, be disposed to cavil at so
classical a supposition. Plate XXV (?), in the copy of the great work on
Herculaneum by Piroli, represents the rehearsal of a play in a manner not very
different from this mosaic ; and, in another painting, the pedagogue is seen
whipping one of his scholars in a school with a similar portico, and, like it,
adorned with garlands.
Bonucci, who had every opportunity of obtaining information, gives a
long list of objects found in the house of the poet. Some of them are too
interesting to be omitted.
Of gold, were found two necklaces and two bracelets, formed of two lines of
semiglobes, which have since been imitated by the goldsmiths and jewellers of
Naples.
Two armlets, formed like serpents, in many convolutions, and a smaller one for
a child.
Four ear-rings, each of two pearls, hanging as if from a balance.
A ring of onyx with the head of a youth.
Two coins, one of Nero and one of Titus. These objects seemed to have fallen
from the dressing-case of a female who lived in the upper story. They were not
more than five feet below the soil.
Thirty-nine silver coins, both consular and imperial ; a mass of brass coins ;
twenty-seven coins separate ; saucepans and kitchen utensils of all sorts ; a
vase for oil ; a bucket ; a lamp for two lights, with the head and feet of a
bull which hung from the ceiling of a chamber ; a little tripod ; a candelabrum ;
screws belonging to the furniture.
Of iron, four hatchets ; a hammer ; a tripod ; a broken key ; two hooks ; two
heels for boots, with holes for the nails ; locks, latches, and hinges.
Of glass, four decanters and three globular bottles. Of terra cotta, fifty-six
lamps and many other articles ; among them a cup, with fine enamel or varnish.
Six plates are said to have been found in another place, with fine blue
varnish.
A head of Hermes of giallo antico ; a quantity of corn ; many
ropes carbonized ; a piece of soap, and three weights of lead. In a house not
far distant were found, in the month of November, 1826, vases with olives still
swimming in oil. They retained their colour, and the oil burnt well. Also a
vase of caviare, or the eggs of tunny fish. Ashes had fallen into air, and
formed a sort of crust, which had preserved the contents.
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(1) This art of representing the effect of a picture upon a
wall, instead of imitating nature itself, is applied, with considerable
success, in the decoration of certain modern Italian habitations. The author
has seen in the Palazzo Sannizzi, at Rieti, a room of magnificent dimensions,
on entering which a visiter imagines himself in an apartment hung with green
damask, and decorated with a profusion of splendid pictures. There are
Madonnas and Holy Familles, landscapes, animals, and battle-pieces, which recal,
at the moment, the names and works of the most distinguished artists. A
further examination, on a nearer approach, shows that no one of the objects
has any decided form or outline, or intelligible sign. Not only does the
whole collection consist in the representation of pictures, but their
seemingly gold frames are merely wooden mouldings roughly painted with ochre,
most scantily touched, here and there, in the prominent parts, with gilding
to represent the effect of catching lights. Behind each sham picture was
nothing but the white wall, and the apparently rich silk hangings consist in
a few narrow stripes of the stuff between the frames - yet the whole has a
good effect.
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