Welcome to the site Napoliforme

A Roman complex of great architectural quality, with refined decorations and objects of high artistic value, conceals a mystery yet to be discovered: the name given to the structure comes from the fascinating hypothesis that the prestigious villa was the last home of the Emperor Augustus. The emperor, in 14 AD, died in a place called apud urbem Nolam, "near Nola", as the Roman historian Tacitus (1st-2nd century AD) also mentions, and written sources and archaeological finds testify to the fact that there were numerous residences of Roman patricians in this area, famous among the Roman aristocracy for its healthy air and fertile land.About 2,500 square metres of the villa, discovered in the Somma Vesuviana area in the 1930s, have so far been excavated, bringing to light structures dating from between the second and fifth centuries AD, They have also unearthed objects (such as wine amphorae and dolia, with seals dating back to before the eruption of 79 AD), as well as decorations and sculptures dating back to the first century AD, which may belong to an earlier and as yet undiscovered nucleus of the complex.The tour of the villa, which in its last phase of use was transformed into a farm, includes monumental structures and rooms, starting with the entrance portal decorated with relief stuccoes: a large room with a colonnade, two walls with niches in which there were marble sculptures of a woman dressed 'in the Greek style' and a Dionysus with a panther, an archway supported by pillars and a wall decorated with themes linked to the god of wine; a room with doors and windows and a mosaic floor divided, during the agricultural use of the villa, into two spaces used as a stable and pantry; to the east is an apsidal room, with a dome frescoed with the frieze of the marine procession of Nereids and Tritons, communicating with another apsidal room with a mosaic floor.