Вилла Папирусов в Геркулануме: Древняя роскошь и восстановленные свитки

Ancient Roman villa in Ercolano, Italy

The Villa of the Papyri (, also known as Villa dei Pisoni and in early excavation records as the Villa Suburbana) was an ancient Roman villa in Herculaneum, in what is now Ercolano, southern Italy. It is named after its unique library of papyri scrolls, discovered in 1750. The Villa was considered to be one of the most luxurious houses in all of Herculaneum and in the Roman world. Its luxury is shown by its exquisite architecture and by the large number of outstanding works of art discovered, including frescoes, bronzes and marble sculpture which constitute the largest collection of Greek and Roman sculptures ever discovered in a single context. It was situated on the ancient coastline below the volcano Vesuvius with nothing to obstruct the view of the sea. It was perhaps owned by Julius Caesar's father in law, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus. In 1908, Barker suggested that Philodemus may have been the owner. In AD 79, the eruption of Vesuvius covered all of Herculaneum with up to of volcanic material from pyroclastic flows. Herculaneum was first excavated between 1750 and 1765 by Karl Weber by means of tunnels. The villa's name derives from the discovery of its library, the only surviving library from the Graeco Roman world that exists in its entirety. It contained over 1,800 papyrus scrolls, now carbonised by the heat of the eruption, the "Herculaneum papyri". multi spectral imaging, a technique developed in the early 1990s, it is possible to read the burned papyri. With multi spectral imaging, many pictures of the illegible papyri are taken using different filters in the infrared or in the ultraviolet range, finely tuned to capture certain wavelengths of light. Thus, the optimum spectral portion can be found for distinguishing ink from paper on the blackened papyrus surface. Non destructive CT scans will, it is hoped, provide breakthroughs in reading the fragile unopened scrolls without destroying them in the process. Encouraging results along this line of research have been obtained, which use phase contrast X ray imaging. According to authors, "this pioneering research opens up new prospects not only for the many papyri still unopened, but also for others that have not yet been discovered, perhaps including a second library of Latin papyri at a lower, as yet unexcavated level of the Villa."

In 1970, oil billionaire J. Paul Getty engaged the architectural firm of Langdon and Wilson to create a replica of the Villa dei Papiri to serve as a museum where his collection of antiquities would be displayed. Based on Weber's plans published in Le Antichità di Ercolano, the museum was built on Getty's Malibu ranch in 1972–1974. Architectural consultant Norman Neuerburg and the curator of Getty's antiquities, Jiří Frel, worked closely with Getty and the architects to ensure the accuracy of the museum building's design
Since the Villa dei Papiri was unexcavated, Neuerburg based many of the villa's architectural and landscaping details on elements from other ancient Roman houses in the towns of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae. For example, the mosaic fountain in the museum's garden peristyle replicates the one in the Nymphaeum of the House of the Large Fountain at Pompeii. In 1997, the Getty Museum was relocated to the Getty Center. The Malibu villa was renovated and reopened in 2006. The reconceived Getty Villa, as it is now called, serves as an annex dedicated to the display of the museum's antiquities and as a centre for the study of ancient art.

The opening pages of the 1850 fictional work A Few Days in Athens claim to be "the translation of a Greek Manuscript discovered in Herculaneum". The novel was written by Frances Wright, a female philosopher who was mentored by the Epicurean American founding father, Thomas Jefferson, and it unapologetically defends Epicurus' character, Epicurean philosophy, and secular values. Several scenes in Robert Harris' bestselling novel Pompeii are set in the Villa of the Papyri, just before the eruption engulfed it. The villa is mentioned as belonging to Roman aristocrat Pedius Cascus and his wife Rectina. Pliny the Younger mentions Rectina, whom he calls the wife of Tascius, in Letter 16 of book VI of his Letters. At the start of the eruption Rectina prepares to have the library evacuated and sends urgent word to her old friend, Pliny the Elder, who commands the Roman Navy at Misenum on the other side of the Bay of Naples. Pliny immediately sets out in a warship, and gets in sight of the villa, but the eruption prevents him from landing and taking off Rectina and her library – which is left for modern archaeologists to find.

According to the 1908 publication Buried Herculaneum by Ethel Ross Barker, there were busts of Athene Gorgolopha, Archaistic Pallas, Archaic Apollo, Head of an Amazon, Dionysus or Plato (? Poseidon), Doryphorus, Mercury, Homer, Ptolemy Alexander (Alexander the Great? ), Ptolemy Philadelphus, Ptolemy Soter I (Seleucus Nicator I), and the mythological Danaids and others.

Illustrations included scenes with, Head with the wreathed helmet (Pyrrhus of Epirus? ), Archimedes (Archidamus III? ), Attilius Regulus (Philetairus of Pergamum? ), Pseudo Seneca (Philetas of Cos? ), Berenice, Heraclitus, Ptolemy Lathyrus, Ptolemy Soter II, Sappho, Warrior in a helmet, Scipio Africanus, Head of a Vestal (Woman unknown), Hannibal or Juba, and Head with a headdress.

Frescoes included, Theseus victorious over the Minotaur, Telephus suckled by the hind, Chiron teaching Achilles the lyre, Perseus slaying Medusa, a charioteer, and papyri.