Stucco Decorations at Baia

Abstract

In my earlier paper on the ‘Stanze di Venere’ (written in 1973), I referred to the progressive deterioration of the stucco and other decorations in the Roman remains at Baia. The following pages are an attempt to provide a full record of the Baian stucco-work not covered in the first article. The idea of compiling this record originated with Dottssa. Maria Elena Bertoldi and received the full support of Prof. Alfonso De Franciscis; while the actual drawings were begun in 1973 by Miss Shelagh Rixon and completed, with further visits to the site for checking in 1974 and 1975, by Dr. Lesley A. Ling. To all of these and to our sponsors (the University of Manchester and the Faculty of Classics in the University of Cambridge) I am deeply indebted. Since the drawings were completed, the task of studying stucco decoration in Roman Italy has been greatly simplified by the pioneer-work of Dr. Harald Mielsch of the German Archaeological Institute in Rome, who has compiled a major corpus of surviving material and attempted to establish a detailed chronology. It only remains for me to provide a commentary on the drawings, to discuss the architectural contexts, and to enlarge upon or modify Dr. Mielsch's conclusions regarding the Baian stucco-work. The various decorations will be dealt with one by one, and the positions of all but two of them are shown on Fig. 1, which has been adapted, by kind permission of Dottssa. Bertoldi, from one of the plans executed for her volume in the Forma Italiae series.