The purpose of this research was to examine the program of frescoes excavated from an ancient Roman villa known as the Fondo Bottaro Villa, or the Contrada Bottaro Villa. The issues presented provide a detailed analysis of the methodologies used to study Campanian painting and, moreover, to investigate the details of the excavation in order to clarify some issues of provenance.

The methodological study examines the controversy over the traditional methodology that places Pompeiian wall painting into four stylistic categories based on chronological developments and the more recent scholarship that places Romano-Campanian painting into a sociopolitical context that (some argue) makes the codified language of wall painting more accessible. The archaeological study looks at the excavation records and the corpus of frescoes (said to come from the Bottaro Villa) to determine whether the details of the excavation were consistent with the museums' records or whether they suggest something different.