Many scholars have examined the ways in which ancient Roman house design emphasized views and viewing within the domestic space; indeed, the role of the vista in the architecture of this period was so important that Roman law codified “the right to an unobstructed view.” Most villas were constructed on the principle of axiality, providing a view through the entire house, but other techniques were utilized, too, often to complement certain domestic rituals or patterns of movement. Parts of the interior that were visible to an outsider walking past the entrance, for instance, often favored “easily legible decorative schemes,” while rooms where a guest was intended to relax on a couch tended to feature more complex ornamentation such as sculptures or fountains.

Yet while many authors have described these elements of ancient Roman design, they have often done so based on work with stationary fragments like sketches or models, which privilege the single perspective frame. A new paper in the American Journal of Archaeology, “Visual Experience in a Pompeian Domestic Space: Analysis Using Virtual Reality-Based Eye Tracking and GIS,” provides a more holistic account of Roman architecture by taking into account factors like body and eye movement, and illumination. The article by authors Danilo Marco Campanaro and Giacomo Landeschi “aims to identify the nuances of social rituals in connection with visibility and proximity and the construction of the self through a study that combines space, movement, and time.” This work was made possible thanks to the Digital Archaeology Laboratory and the Humanities Lab of Lund University, Sweden.