The Case a Giardino (Garden Houses), built in around AD 130 as part of a vast construction project, had a mainly residential function though they also included commercial and service spaces. The complex consisted of an external rectangle and two central symmetrical residential blocks, separated by an area laid out as a garden (A) with six fountains (B). The buildings, at least three storeys high and accessed from the garden, had external staircases leading up to the apartments located on the upper floors, generally 4 destined for rental. The complex, as functional and elegantas a modern luxury apartment building, was inhabited by the city’s upper middle class, in an area near the sea and not too distant from the city centre.
General view of the Case a Giardino after excavation
Reconstruction of the east façade of the west side of the rectangle
(M.A. Ricciardi)
Detail of the mosaic with a Nile scene belonging to a basin in the garden (A)
Reconstruction of one of the covered fountains in the garden (B)
(M.A. Ricciardi)
View of the paintings in one of the apartments in the central blocks
General view of the Garden Houses complex
Design for the arrangement of the greenery in the Garden Houses area
(M. Busiri Vici, 1941)
Detail of the paintings of one of the apartments in the central blocks
Statue of a fisherman discovered in the Garden Houses area