Room 2 (atrium)

Renée Forsell

The atrium is entered from the fauces in the south. There are three door openings in the W wall, towards rooms 5, 6 and 7. The W part of the S wall and the W wall has been rebuilt. The W wall is thicker than the rest of the walls in the house and tuff blocks are flanking the door openings. The S wall have been rebuilt in op testacium along the corner towards the fauces.

On the N side of the atrium the tablinum is located, W of the tablinum a corridor leads towards the latrina and in the E part of the N wall another door leads to a nympheum d. In the N part of the E wall another door opening leads to the triclinium room 4. Finally there is a door opening in the S part of the E wall into the corridor 3 which leads into Casa del Torello V1, 7. Between this door opening and the opening into the fauces, along the E side of the S wall, stands an L-shaped range.

The atrium had a cocciopesto floor, of which hardly nothing remains. There are however some small remains along the western wall. During the clearing of the floor some remains of an earlier floor bedding was found c. 0.15 m below the upper one.

An impluvium is placed in the middle of the floor. A water pipe lead the water from the House of the bronze bull, V 1,7, in the north, to a water distribution box located by the NW corner of the impluvium. It shows that there was a fountain in the impluvium and that another fountain may have been standing on the W side of it.

The remaining wall plaster is badly damaged and only patches are preserved, mainly on the walls by the SW corner and on the lower parts of the other walls.