Getty Villa, Malibu, Los Angeles
The tycoon John Paul Getty built this villa in Malibu inspired by the design of the Villa dei Papiri , a grand country residence on the Bay of Naples buried by the Vesuvius eruption in AD 79. It had been built by the father in law of Julius Caesar.
Salvaged , preserved buried artefacts from the Villa are displayed in an exhibition ,“Buried by Vesuvius” .These include some of the 65 bronze and 27 marble statues , the largest collection ever realized from a single site.
The Getty Villa was also inspired by ancient houses in nearby Pompei and Herculaneum and Getty’s love of Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli outside Rome. Getty built his replica to house his extensive Roman collection. He never visited it or lived here . Nor did he visit the excavation site which had covered the original villa in nearly 30 metres of lava. Excavations had begun in the 18th century and continue today.
Getty once said: “I feel no qualms of a reticence about likening Getty Oil Company to an “ Empire” and myself as Caesar”
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