MINORI
Campania, Italy.
The site of a
major villa on the Amalfi coast ca. 11 km W-SW of
Salerno. It is on the left bank of the torrent Regina
Minor, which supplied its nymphaeum and fishpond.
Rooms in two stories have been explored and in part
cleared. On the lower level these are disposed along the
landward side of a large rectangular arcaded court that
presented a blind facade toward the sea broken only by
a great central arch on the axis of the nymphaeum, but
there may have been other terraces below. The rooms W
of the nymphaeum were living rooms, barrel vaulted, except for one with a shallow oval dome of particular interest. The painted decorations are in the Third and Fourth Pompeian styles. An equivalent wing E of the
nymphaeum, including baths, has been explored but is
not accessible. The nymphaeum itself is a formal grotto
paved with mosaics showing sea creatures, with water
stairs at the end and high lateral basins. The W stair
leading to the upper story employs an interesting effect
of forced perspective, but of the rooms on this level
almost nothing survives. A foundation in the Julio-Claudian period is indicated, with survival only to the time of the Flavians. Probably the villa was buried by one of the landslips to which the region is subject.
Remains of other villas have been discovered in the
neighborhood, and underwater exploration has brought
up a number of amphorae and anchors, now kept in the
antiquarium of the great villa.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
V. Panebianco in
Palladio (1939) 129-33
PI; A. Maiuri in
RendNap NS 29 (1954) 87-92;
N. Franciosa,
La Villa romana di Minori (1968)
P.
L. RICHARDSON, JR.
