Getty Villa

Ben poses at the base of the ampitheatre and across from the Getty Villa

Benjamin is home on Spring Break.  He's taking a class on Roman history so it seemed fitting for us to revisit the Getty Villa, built on a hilltop in Malibu to duplicate an ancient Roman villa. The Villa of the Papyri, unearthed in Italy in 1790, was buried under ash in 79 CE when Mount Vesuvius erupted, and has never been fully excavated.  However, it was one of the most luxurious villas in all of Italy and may have been owned by Ceaesar's father-in-law.  The oil baron J. Paul Getty, whose old ranch house sits in the background in the picture above, had been collecting antiquities and wanted to show them off in their proper setting.

The Atrium.  This was the main public room in a Roman house.
Includes it's own "impluvium" where rainwater was collected.  Looks out into the inner courtyard (peristyle).

The Villa is undergoing yet another renovation, so the entire second floor is closed. However, that gave us more time to concentrate on the first floor exhibits (like the Landsdowne Heracles), and attend two docent-led tours.  The second tour highlighted the architecture of the museum.  Did you know that flower petals are painted on the ceiling of the front porch?  That's so visitors will be (figuratively) showered with flowers as they enter the front gate.  All the main doors are in line, so that when all are open, you have a view all the way to the outer court, and the Gulf of Naples. (Or in our case, fog.) Floors and walls are covered in marble in every hue imaginable, and in patterns that would make Escher blush at their complexity.  The villa is itself a work of art, apart from its priceless contents.