was the first to be explored in the excavations in Bourbon times between 1749 and 1754. The villa was re-buried after the removal of its furnishings and of the better-preserved frescoes. Excavations were resumed in 1950 by Libero d’Orsi and O. Elia of the Archaeological Superintendency. The villa was built at least in part on a 6th c. BC platform that may have levelled the ground on the hill. Construction started at the latest in Augustus' reign and was significantly enlarged with the garden and swimming pool under Claudius. The owner's name is not exactly known but it could belong to a certain Narcissus, a freedman, on the basis of stamps found on tiles, or to the Virtii family who had tombs not far away. It has an entrance atrium (44) containing a pool, a triclinium (16) with views of the bay, and several colonnaded courtyards. There are also many other small rooms, a kitchen and two internal gardens. This villa is also important because it has provided frescoes, sculptures, mosaics and architecture, which show styles and themes comparable to those found in Pompeii and Herculaneum. The great peristyle (9) is surrounded by a long porch with a central pool (15) of 36×7 m which at the end has a nympheum (64,65) that has yet to be explored, decorated with frescoes depicting Neptune, Venus and several athletes, that were removed by the Bourbons and are now at the Naples museum and the Condé Museum in Chantilly, France. In the peristyle garden large plane trees grew and their root cavities were found; just as with the casts of humans these cavities were filled with liquid concrete to make casts and archaeologists have also calculated that their age ranged from 75 to 100 years. The villa has an even larger second peristyle on the southern side, partially excavated, approximately 140m long, with arcades supported by spiral columns which collapsed during the 1980 Irpinia earthquake: the ceilings are painted with scenes depicting Melpomene, the Apotheosis of Athena etc.. In this peristyle was a sundial found during the excavation in a deposit as the villa at the time of the eruption was under renovation; the sundial was subsequently placed in its original position. The baths of the villa are of considerable size on a triangular plot. The remains of the frescoes show they were finely decorated with depictions of large pendulous branches. Access to