The wall-paintings from the so-called Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale, in the countryside just north of Pompeii, are among the most important remains of Roman mural art to have survived. Belonging to the mature ‘Second Style’, they consist of excerpts from several schemes of illusionistic architecture, as well as the first example to be discovered of those compositions of large figures set against brilliant red orthostates – the so-called megalographies – of which the frieze in the Pompeian Villa of the Mysteries, unearthed a few years later, is the most famous representative. But, despite their importance, the Boscoreale paintings have suffered a sorry fate. Excavated between 1899 and 1902 at his own expense by a prominent local dignitary, Vincenzo De Prisco, they were cut into a large number of panels, most of which were auctioned in Paris in June 1903. As a result they have become dispersed between various museums in different countries. Apart from some substantial panels that were deposited in Naples in return for permission to export, there are pieces known in eight modern collections. The most important are the paintings of cubiculum M, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, but there are further pieces in the Louvre and other French museums, as well as in Belgium and the Netherlands. As for the villa, its ruins were roughly back-filled by the time-honoured method of transferring spoil from one room to another as the excavations progressed. Regrettably, De Prisco published no account of his results, but we have an invaluable description of the villa and its paintings by Felice Barnabei which came out in 1901. Though work on the site continued for another year, it seems that exploration of the main residential areas had been completed, and Barnabei's book remains, perforce, the primary source for all subsequent studies.

To understand the villa it is obviously necessary to re-establish the relationship between architecture and decorations. A first serious attempt was made in 1953 by Phyllis Williams Lehmann, whose monograph Roman Wall Paintings from Boscoreale in the Metropolitan Museum of Art collected all the evidence known at the time. But, since then, further material has come to light, most recently three panels in Théodore Reinach's Villa Kérylos at Beaulieu-sur-Mer on the Côte d'Azur, identified by B. in the last decade. The new discoveries, coupled with programmes of conservation and restoration in several of the museums involved, plus a virtual-reality reconstruction undertaken by King's College London in collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum, have promoted renewed interest in the villa, culminating in the initiative commemorated by the volume under review.

The book is divided into two distinct parts. Volume 1 is a descriptive room-by-room account of the paintings written by É. Dubois-Pelerin. Her meticulous catalogue is accompanied by reconstruction drawings (omitting the near-complete cubiculum M), on which colour photographs of the surviving panels have been dropped to show their likely positions. A uniform scale of 1:20 (only the long walls of the peristyle are reduced to 1:60) aids the reader to compare the schemes in a systematic way. The result is an exemplary presentation which must serve, henceforth, as the starting-point for all research on the villa.

The second volume brings together the proceedings of a colloquium held in Mariemont and Brussels in April 2010 to serve as a forum on recent advancements in our understanding of the villa and in the treatment of the paintings. Although one or two papers have been withdrawn from the final publication, or substituted by something different, the coverage is wide-ranging. There are 29 papers in all, arranged according to six themes: (1) the discovery and excavation of the villa, (2) iconographic questions, (3) proposals for graphic and digital restorations of the decorations, (4) comparison with other villas of the Pompeii region, (5) the conservation and restoration of the panels, (6) the sale of 1903 and the dispersal of the panels. Inevitably with a volume of this kind, the papers are uneven in scope and quality. Some largely reiterate articles published elsewhere (e.g. G. Saurin on his theories about the meaning of the megalography in oecus H; D. Esposito on the remains of paintings from the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum; R. Meyer on the conservation and restoration of the paintings in New York). This is not a major fault, however, because it is useful, for completeness, to have all the material brought together between one set of covers. It is slightly less satisfying that some of the papers on conservation and museology are relatively brief and generalised (e.g. Meyer's paper, just mentioned, and a three-page note by B. on the restoration of the three panels from the Louvre) whereas the account of work on the panels of the Villa Kérylos (by J.-M. Vallet and others) is a detailed technical study supported by graphs, tables and infra-red photographs. Some attempt to impose a more consistent depth of analysis might have brought benefits.

This said, the papers are mostly of a high standard, and very few are lacking in interest. Of particular value are those which deal with the story of the excavations and the sale of the paintings. They include an account by G. Stefani of the political in-fighting between De Prisco and the archaeological authorities, as a result of which the Italian parliament introduced the first legislation to curb the export of antiquities. Stefani also brings to light important archival material on the excavations, including a hitherto unpublished manuscript plan of the villa. For the sale, D. Roger and N. Mathieux, using minutes from the archives of the city of Paris, search out information on prices and buyers. Fifteen panels are unaccounted for, so further items may still turn up in obscure museums or private collections.

Another fascinating paper, by L. Oliva and A. Conato, looks at the modern town of Boscoreale, with special emphasis on De Prisco's house, decorated with frescoes in pseudo-Pompeian styles. Finally, we may mention J. Clarke's contribution, which focuses on a couple of sketches on plaster undercoats in the villa at Oplontis, probably decorated by the same firm that worked at Boscoreale. These sketches, together with the close relationship between certain figures in the two sets of paintings, testify to the use of scale drawings to work out patterns and motifs in advance of their execution.

Accompanying the colloquium was an exhibition which featured a new model of the villa: V.-P. delivers a vigorous defence of the value of such reconstructions versus digital visualisations. All in all, the occasion was evidently a great success. The only cloud on the horizon (literally) was the fall-out from an erupting volcano in Iceland, which prevented several speakers from attending. It is ironic that proceedings should have been hampered by an event similar to the one that originally buried the Boscoreale villa and its frescoes. We must be grateful to the organisers for putting together such a full and beautifully produced record of the colloquium as it was planned.