After thirty years the Casa del Mobilio Carbonizzato reopens in Ercolano

The name of this domus already tells an exciting story: it owes its identity to the discovery of a small table and a bed with a high backrest, which still retained traces of fabric and the remains of the rope net to which the wooden slats were attached. Objects of everyday life, surprised by the eruption and guarded by time, brought to light between 1932 and 1933 during the great season of excavations conducted by Amedeo Maiuri, the great archaeologist who more than any other gave the face of ancient Herculaneum back to the world.

Crossing the threshold of this house, built in the Republican age, means crossing a domestic system that has been preserved with extraordinary coherence: the rooms are arranged around the atrium and the garden at the back, where a small lararium in the shape of a small temple welcomed the family’s devotions. On the upper floor, a loggia with columns overlooked the atrium from the first construction phase of the house, while the walls, decorated in the 4th Style, reveal the signs of several phases of life and renovation of the house. Among the most precious rooms, the triclinium to the right of the entrance preserves a mosaic floor with a refined marble emblem and still life decorations; the tablinum in turn houses a mosaic with a marble insert and traces of the ancient frescoed ceiling. And right at the back of the house, in the so-called oecus Cyzicenus, opened by a large window onto the garden, the charred furnishings that gave this domus its name were found: a small table and a bed, silent witnesses of a life interrupted in an instant, almost two thousand years ago.

“Bringing the House of Carbonized Furniture back to light and returning it to the city, after almost thirty years of closure, is an achievement that concerns us deeply. We are not just talking about the recovery of an architectural space, but about the restitution of a human story made up of daily gestures – a bed, a table – which the eruption has frozen in time and which today, thanks to long and patient restoration work, we can finally tell again. It is the tangible sign of a protection strategy that looks ahead, based on daily care and on the long-term planning of our heritage”, declares Federica Colaiacomo, director of the Archaeological Park of Ercolano.

The reopening of the House of Carbonized Furniture is the result of a restoration process started more than 10 years ago, when the first urgent works to reconstruct the roofs and make the decorated surfaces safe were carried out, as part of the public-private partnership between the Archaeological Park of Herculaneum and the Packard Humanities Institute (PHI), which operates through the Packard Institute for Cultural Heritage (IPBC), active in Herculaneum for twenty-five years.

Architect Rossella Di Lauro says: “The most recent interventions represent the natural continuation of the first works. In this phase, we gave priority to critical issues that remained unresolved, such as the reconstruction of some wooden floors, the replacement of compromised architraves, the consolidation and complete restoration of the columns overlooking the atrium located on the first floor above the tablinum roof. This last intervention, in particular, was carried out thanks to accurate three-dimensional surveys and delicate disassembly and reassembly operations controlled, in close synergy with the conservators-restorers. The iron architraves-repositories, which present exceptional portions of charred wood, have been replaced by new wooden structures appropriately worked with innovative solutions, so as to continue to perform the function of protective cases; in fact, the carefully restored charred fragments have been relocated inside these; this specific type of intervention was designed to facilitate the monitoring and future maintenance of the precious wooden finds.”

The intervention is part of the broader project “Conservative restoration of the structures and decorated surfaces of the most important domus of Herculaneum”, which involves the reopening of six of the most important domus of the site, the result of joint programming between the Archaeological Park of Herculaneum and the Packard foundations, developed by the private partner and implemented under the scientific and technical coordination of the Park. An approach based on scheduled maintenance and conservation on an urban scale, which has already allowed, in March 2025, the reopening of the House of the Tuscan Colonnade and the House of the Wooden Shrine.

Today the domus restores full legibility to its decorative systems: wall paintings, decorated ceilings and floors that had long been compromised by infesting vegetation have been made safe, stabilized and, where possible, subjected to cleaning and pictorial retouching. An important milestone for Ercolano, where for years the priorities have been focused on reducing risk: today, having achieved greater conservative stability, it has also been possible to dedicate itself to the aesthetic recovery of various decorations, restoring artistic quality and historical value to the public.

The reopening of the atrium and the rooms that surround it is a first, fundamental step towards the full use of the domus: the next interventions will concern the garden-hortus and the restoration of the lararium, in continuity with heritage management that focuses on phased planning and daily care of one of the most extraordinary archaeological sites in the world. The history of the House of Carbonized Furniture does not end within its walls: the charred wood that gave its name to the domus are today exhibited to the public on the mezzanine floor of the Antiquarium of Herculaneum, together with other finds that each preserve their own history and experience. Among these, also a coffee table coming from this very house. Visitors are therefore invited to continue their journey in the Antiquarium, to complete their knowledge of the domus and close the circle of a visit experience that passes through the entire Archaeological Park of Herculaneum.