STEPHANUS’ FULLONICA-REGIO I, Stephanus’ Fullonica-Regio I - Ai Voice
Language: English / USA
The Fullonica of Stephanus offers an exceptional insight into how typical Roman laundries operated and what they looked like.
Here, workers handled both the cleaning and degreasing of newly woven fabrics and the washing and sanitizing of soiled garments.
This fullonica was built during the final phase of Pompeii’s urban development. The structure was originally a domus with an atrium at its entrance. It was later converted into a laundry facility, adapting its spaces to meet the needs of textile work. At the center of the atrium, where the impluvium (the basin that collected rainwater) once stood, a large washing basin was installed for fabric treatment. A skylight replaced the former compluvium, allowing natural light to flood the space and providing a terrace above where garments could be laid out to dry.
The work of the fullones, or Roman launderers, followed several distinct stages.
First, fabrics were soaked in large vats filled with water and urine, the latter rich in ammonia, collected from public jars placed at street corners. Inside these vats, workers trampled the cloths with their feet—a process known as saltus fullonicus—to remove grease and deeply cleanse the fabric.
Next, the textiles were treated with fuller’s clay (creta fullonica), an absorbent clay used to eliminate residual oils and restore the fabric’s brightness. They were then rinsed in clean water and bleached in closed rooms filled with sulfur vapors, which helped whiten and disinfect the fabrics. Finally, garments were pressed under a heavy wooden and stone press, called a torcular, to achieve a smooth, finished appearance.
A detail of particular interest for visitors today is the reconstructed kitchen area, set up as part of a museum display. Here you can see a metal grill and various cooking utensils—not original to the laundry, but arranged for educational purposes to evoke the atmosphere of a Roman domestic space.
Let me leave you with an interesting fact: near the entrance of the Fullonica of Stephanus, archaeologists discovered a skeleton clutching a small hoard of coins. It’s been suggested that this might have been Stephanus himself, the owner of the laundry, attempting to flee with his earnings when the eruption of Vesuvius struck. Of course, this remains only a fascinating hypothesis.
