"Still life at the foot of Mount Vesuvius"

After a long sleep, Vesuvius woke up on the 24th of August of 79AD: The eruption totally erased any kind of life at the foot of the volcano and, for centuries and centuries, even the memory of the buried cities got lost. After 1.700 years most of the cities started to reappear, letting us learning more about the Roman culture by visiting not only Pompeii and Herculaneum, but also some smaller villages like Boscoreale, Stabiae and Oplontis.

Boscoreale

Boscoreale is a town in the province of Naples, Campania, located in the Parco Nazionale del Vesuvio under the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, known for the fruit and vineyards of Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio. There is also a fine Vesuvian lava stone production.
The area is famous for the frescoes of its aristocratic villas, excavated before World War I. A hoard of Roman silver and coins that had been hidden in a cistern for protection at the time of the eruption was also recovered in Boscoreale in 1895, and divided among museums, including the Louvre.
Boscoreale, about a kilometer north of Pompeii of which it was an expansive, more rural outlying suburb, was notable in antiquity for having numerous aristocratic country villas and was preserved as a hunting park - hence its name, meaning "Royal Grove" - by the kings of Naples.

The Antiquarium of Boscoreale

was founded in 1991 by the Soprintendenza archeologica di Pompei thanks to the finds from Pompeii, Herculaneum, Oplontis, Stabiae, Terzigno, and Boscoreale and to a didactic apparatus; this museum collects several artifacts belonging to the daily life of the Roman society on the Neapolitan territory.
Among the several villas of the territory there’s one which is open to the public: Villa Regina, discovered in 1977 and totally brought to light by the Sovrintendenza Archeologica of Pompeii.
Inside we can admire the rooms displaying the wine press and the cellar still containing the jars to keep the wine, as well as the service rooms and the residencial ones, with some cubicula (bedrooms) and a huge room with splendid Pompeian style frescoes.

Stabiae

Stabiae was an ancient Roman town, located close to the modern town of Castellammare di Stabia approximately 4.5 km southeast of Pompeii. Being only sixteen kilometers from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, this seaside resort was largely destroyed by 2 metres of tephra ash.
Originally a small port, by the 6th century BC Stabiae had already been overshadowed by the much larger port at Pompeii. The town was destroyed by Lucius Cornelius Sulla on 30 April 89 BC during the Social War, a revolt by many of Rome's allies in the area. The Roman author and admiral Pliny the Elder recorded that the town was rebuilt and became a popular resort for wealthy Romans. He reported that there were several miles of luxury villas built along the edge of the headland, all enjoying panoramic views out over the bay.
According to the account written by his nephew, Pliny the Elder was at the other side of the bay in Misenum when the eruption started. He traveled by galley ship across the bay, partly to observe the eruption more closely, and partly to rescue people from the coast near the volcano.
Pliny died at Stabiae the following day, probably during the arrival of the sixth and largest pyroclastic surge of the eruption caused by the collapse of the eruption plume. The very dilute outer edge of this surge was the only one to reach Stabiae and left two centimetres of ash on top of the tephra deposits.
The archaeological remains of Stabiae were originally discovered in 1749 by Cavaliere Rocco de Alcubierre, an engineer working for the Bourbon king. These ruins were partially excavated by Alcubierre with help from Karl Weber between 1749–1782. The ruins that had been excavated, however, were reburied and their location was forgotten until 1950, when a high school principal rediscovered them.
The most famous of the findings at Stabiae are the villas that come from the time between the destruction of Stabiae by Sulla in 89 BC and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
These villas, which are described below, provide us with some of the most stunning architectural and artistic remains of Roman villas. 2004 saw an Italian-American collaboration between the Superintendency of Archaeolgy of Pompei, the region of Campania and the University of Maryland to form the non-profit Archaeological entity, the Restoring Ancient Stabiae Foundation (RAS). It is the RAS Foundation's prime goal to excavate, restore and build an archaeological park at the ancient site of Stabiae, a complex of seven or eight Roman villas according to recent geophysical surveys conducted by the University of Birmingham.
A large number of artifacts come from Stabiae are preserved in the Naples National Archaeological Museum.

Villa San Marco

One of the largest villas ever discovered in Campania, measuring more than 11,000 square metres. This villa has an atrium, a courtyard containing a pool, a triclinium with views of the bay, and a colonnaded courtyard. There are also many other small rooms, a kitchen, and two internal gardens. Villa San Marco also has a private bath complex that is made up of a calidarium, tepidarium, and a frigidarium. This villa is also important because it has provided us with beautiful frescoes, sculptures, mosaics, and architecture, which show styles and themes comparable to those found in Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Villa Arianna

Named from the fresco depicting Dionysus saving Ariadne from a desert island. This villa is particularly famous for its frescoes, many of which depict light, winged figures. It is difficult to get a clear sense of this villa, however, because it grew over the course of 150 years. It has one of the largest courtyards of any Roman villa; measuring two stadia in length. Another feature of Villa Arianna is its private tunnel system that connects from its location on the ridge to the sea shore, which was probably only between 100 and 200 metres away from the bottom of the hill. The shoreline has since changed, making the archaeological site further inland than it was in antiquity.

Oplontis

Oplontis was a town near Pompeii, in the Roman Empire. The name Oplontis most likely refers to the baths in the area of Oncino, but today the name commonly covers the group of villas in the middle of the modern town of Torre Annunziata.
On August 24 AD 79, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius buried it under large levels of ash. A large number of artifacts come from Oplontis are preserved in the Naples National Archaeological Museum.

Villa Poppea

The Villa Poppaea is a large structure situated in the Roman town of Oplontis, about ten metres below the modern level. It was owned by the Emperor Nero, and used by his second wife Poppaea Sabina, as her main residence when not in Rome. The archeological evidence suggests that at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79, the villa was empty, being in the process of rebuilding and redecoration, possibly in the aftermath of the earthquake of 62. Nero had killed Poppaea in 65; according to Suetonius, by kicking her in the abdomen when she was in late pregnancy.

The Caldarium

The frescos decorating the walls are among the best preserved, both in form and in colour, of all Imperial Roman frescoes; the roof of the building largely survived the eruption, thus affording protection from the elements. The frescoes are in the Pompeiian Second Style, with feigned architecture with windows that seem to open onto views or perspectives of trompe-l'oeil colonnades, ambitious undertakings that, after Rome's demise, would not be equalled in Italy until the fifteenth century.
Though the site of the villa was rediscovered during brief excavations carried out by Francesco La Vega in the eighteenth century, the swimming pool, which measures 60 by 15 meters, was not unearthed until the 1970.
Nearby is the more recently uncovered Villa of L. Crassius Tertius, discovered in 1974. A bronze seal found at the site gave the name of its last owner. This villa, which contained a large number of amphorae, was not deserted at the time of the eruption: beside the bodies of the unfortunate victims, coins and jewelry were also found.