One of Pompeii's most famous houses is reopening after more than ten years. The Casa degli Amorini Dorati (House of the Flying Cupids), one of the supreme examples of the refined taste of the age of the Emperor Nero, will open its doors again after long renovation on April 3.
The house was built in the III Century BC and restyled on several occasions up to the 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius that buried the city in smouldering ash. It has a charming rural air, according to the vogue of its last incarnation, with a little temple, water-spouting statues and bas-reliefs of Maenads and Satyrs.
One corner of the large house holds a shrine devoted to the cult of Egyptian deities, while the stucco ceilings of two little rooms are unusually fine. In the eastern colonnade there is a large room with paintings of Thetis and Vulcan, Jason and Pelias, and
Achilles in his tent with Patroclus and Briseis.
The House of the Flying Cupids gains its name from the flying, gilded Cupids that once adorned its walls. To keep them safe from the ravages of wind, rain and pollution they are now in Naples' Archaeological Museum along with a host of other statues, frescoes and adornments from Pompeii.
The house is believed to have belonged to a relative of Nero's second wife Poppea Sabina.
The house is open by online reservation only at www.arethusa.net.
