Room 01 (vestibulum)

Thomas Staub

This room forms the outer entrance to the house. The monumental entrance towards via di Nola, built of regular hewn blocks of tuff stone, was crowned by figured capitals, of which the eastern one was found in situ at the excavations 1837. The room is app. 2.5 m wide and 1.1 m deep. To the north the threshold of travertine for the main entrance door of the house forms a 0.15 m high step.
Both the southern and the northern side are nearly completely taken up by the large openings towards the street respectively the house. In the eastern wall a doorway was opened up in a second building phase, leading towards a smaller side-entrance, which could have been used before or after the normal reception hours and for less important visitors and servants.
The entrance walls to V 1,7 are not set in a right angle to the facade, but seem to follow the direction of the Via di Vesuvio as the complete allotment of V 1,7 is doing. The western corner blocks form an angle of ca. 78o, the eastern one correspondingly of 112o.
All the walls are made of tuff stone blocks; also the floor is made of that material.