Inspired by the excavations in Pompeii, King Ludwig I of Bavaria commissioned the architect Friedrich von Gärtner to build an idealized Roman villa, which was completed from 1840–1848. On the ground floor are the reception and guest rooms, the kitchen and the dining room, grouped around two inner court yards, the Atrium with its water basin and the Viridarium with its garden in the rear section of the house.
The splendid decoration of the interior and the mosaic floors were copied or adapted from ancient models. Since 1994, original Roman works of art from the State Antiquities Collections and the Glyptothek in Munich are now also on display here. Among the most valuable exhibits in addition to the Roman marble sculptures, small bronzes and glas ses, are two marble thrones of gods. In addition, there is a different special exhibtion every year on an archaeological topic.
The Pompeiianum is surrounded by a small garden which was also only laid out in the mid-19th century. It was to be an 'ideal Mediterranean landscape', and still has a flavour of the warmer climes of southern Europe with its fig, araucaria and almond trees, as well as vines, Lombardy poplars and pines.
References:The Broch of Gurness is an Iron Age broch village. Settlement here began sometime between 500 and 200 BC. At the centre of the settlement is a stone tower or broch, which once probably reached a height of around 10 metres. Its interior is divided into sections by upright slabs. The tower features two skins of drystone walls, with stone-floored galleries in between. These are accessed by steps. Stone ledges suggest that there was once an upper storey with a timber floor. The roof would have been thatched, surrounded by a wall walk linked by stairs to the ground floor. The broch features two hearths and a subterranean stone cistern with steps leading down into it. It is thought to have some religious significance, relating to an Iron Age cult of the underground.
The remains of the central tower are up to 3.6 metres high, and the stone walls are up to 4.1 metres thick.