The Villa of the Mysteries of Pompeii: Ancient Ritual, Modern Muse

by Gazda, Elaine K.

• ISBN13: 9781930561021
• ISBN10: 1930561024
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-07-01
• Publisher: Isd

Summary

This is a catalogue of an exhibition by the Kelsey Museum at the University of Michigan which focused on a cycle of frescoes found in 1990 at the well-known villa on the outskirts of ancient Pompeii. Probably painted around 60 BC, the cycle depicts young women probably being initiated into the cult of Bacchus (Dionysus) in preparation for marriage. The catalogue presents a number of objects connected with the villa, as well as the reconstruction watercolours commissioned by Francis Willey Kelsey, founder of the museum, from Maria Barosso, an artist working in Rome at the time of the frescoes' discovery. Even more interesting are the ten essays that precede the artefacts, which focus on women and cult in the art of Roman Italy' and have been developed out of a research group led by Gazda.

Table of Contents

Foreword	vii
Preface	ix
Lenders to the Exhibition and Contributors to the Catalogue	xiii
Introduction: Ancient and Modern Contexts of the Bacchic Murals in the Villa of the Mysteries	1	(13)
Elaine K. Gazda
The God of the Vine: A Note on Nomenclature	14	(2)
Drew Wilburn
The Geography and History of Campania and Pompeii	16	(8)
Drew Wilburn
A Gendered Space? Location and Function of Room 5 in the Villa of the Mysteries	24	(14)
Brenda Longfellow
Women, Ritual, and Social Standing in Roman Italy	38	(12)
Catherine Hammer
The God of Fertility in Room 5 of the Villa of the Mysteries	50	(9)
Drew Wilburn
Bacchus/Liber in Pompeii: A Religious Context for the Villa of the Mysteries Frieze	59	(15)
Molly Swetnam-Burland
Bacchic Imagery and Cult Practice in Roman Italy	74	(9)
Elizabeth de Grummond
The Search for the Origins of the Villa of the Mysteries Frieze	83	(15)
Jessica M. Davis
Nuptial Imagery in the Villa of the Mysteries Frieze: South Italian and Sicilian Precedents	98	(18)
Shoshanna S. Kirk
Liber and Venus in the Villa of the Mysteries	116
Brenda Longfellow