The mosaics and the House of the Faun Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli

This guide presents the mosaics preserved in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, discovered in houses in Herculaneum and Pompeii and brought to light in excavations since the eighteenth century. The most beautiful were detached and allocated to adorn the residences of the Bourbons and, starting from 1816, the Real Museo Borbonico, the original core of what was to become the Museo Archeologico Nazionale. The outstanding moment in the history of the collection was certainly the discovery of the House of the Faun in Pompeii. One after the other, between 1830 and 1832, eleven mosaics were discovered, all of outstanding beauty, and above all the “Gran Musaico” par excellence, the great scene of the battle of Alexander against Darius. In view of the importance of this core group, the guide includes not only the mosaics but also all the other objects from the House of the Faun, reconstructing a lifestyle that embraced almost two centuries of ancient history.

English edition, translated by Richard Sadleir.