A magnificent opus sectile in the Getty Villa’s “Temple of Hercules” reproduces a first-century pavement from the Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum. Decorating a scenic pavilion overlooking the Bay of Naples, the original Roman floor was the first architectural feature discovered by workers excavating a well in 1750. Its geometric pattern of concentric circles of triangles is composed of yellow giallo antico and dark gray africano marbles, with dark green porphyry and red rosso antico arrows at the center.
