Villa dei Papiri

J. Paul Getty, one of the wealthiest men of the 20th century, first visited Herculaneum in 1912 at the age of 19.  Thus began a lifelong fascination with the ancient world fueled by Getty's imaginary visions of the lives of Roman statesmen and entrepreneurs that he considered his antecedents.  Getty purchased his first antiquity in 1939 and by 1955 he had acquired enough ancient art to open a small museum in his ranch house constructed in a canyon.near the famous surfing beaches of Malibu, California.

Getty continued to collect antiquities as well as European decorative art like furnishings used by monarchs like Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.  Anxious to share his expanding collections with the public, Getty announced plans to construct a new museum complex that would be a reproduction of the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum on 1970.