Boscoreale
Boscoreale
- Nicholas Purcell
Subjects
- Ancient Geography
- Roman Material Culture
Boscoreale, former hunting-reserve of the Angevin kings of Naples (Neapolis) and part of the Naples conurbation, 2 km. (1 ¼ mi.) from Pompeii, is famous for the excavation of several villae rusticae, buried in the eruption of Vesuvius in ce 79. They combine efficient equipment for investment-agriculture (especially oil and wine), and clear evidence of slave-labour, with comfortable appointments: from one (‘Pisanella’) came the 94 pieces of silver plate known as the Boscoreale treasure (in the Louvre); from another, perhaps once an estate of Agrippa Postumus, came the fine paintings in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The recently excavated Villa Regina preserves the fittings and surroundings of a more modest farm in eloquent detail. See villa.
Bibliography
- R. Etienne, in K. Schefold (ed.), La regione sotterrata dal Vesuvio: Studi e prospettive (1982).
- V. Kockel, Archäologischer Anzeiger in Jahrbuch des [kaiserlichen] deutschen archäologischen Instituts (JDAI) (1985), 495–571.
- P. H. Blanckenhagen and M. Alexander, The Paintings from Boscotrecase (1962).
- R. R. R. Smith, Journal of Roman Archaeology 1994.
