Pompeii Forum

Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.

Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.

Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.

It is the main public square of Pompeii, the Roman town on the Bay of Naples buried by Vesuvius in 79 AD, about 24 kilometres south of Naples in the Campania region of Italy. It sits a short walk inside the Porta Marina entrance to the Archaeological Park.

The square was laid out on a north–south axis with the Temple of Jupiter closing its north end and Vesuvius rising directly behind it. The alignment was deliberate Roman town planning; the volcano that destroyed the city framed the temple by design, more than two centuries before the eruption.

The Temple of Jupiter stood at the north end, with the Basilica, the Temple of Apollo, the macellum food market, the Eumachia building and the municipal offices around the other sides. Most survive now as footings, column stumps and the temple's high podium.

The square took its rectangular colonnaded form in the 2nd century BC. After Sulla captured Pompeii in 89 BC and refounded it as a Roman colony in 80 BC, the portico was extended under the emperor Augustus and faced in white limestone.

Enter the Pompeii Archaeological Park through the Porta Marina gate, the entrance closest to the Pompei Scavi – Villa dei Misteri stop on the Circumvesuviana railway from Naples or Sorrento. The Forum is a few minutes' walk uphill from there.

The standard Pompeii Express ticket is 18 euro, free for under-18s and 2 euro for EU citizens aged 18 to 25. The park opens daily except 1 January, 1 May and 25 December, with last admission 90 minutes before closing.

Excavations recovered bodies in and around the Forum, suggesting some residents sheltered in the open square as the eruption advanced. It was among the last parts of Pompeii to be buried, under metres of volcanic ash and pumice in 79 AD.

It has been a meaningful piece for travellers who stood in the Forum and watched Vesuvius rise behind the Temple of Jupiter. That square is the image most people carry home from Pompeii. A Small or Medium with a handwritten note from the studio carries it well.

The artwork's stained-glass colour and stone-and-sky composition sits well in Mediterranean-modern, warm-minimalist and jewel-tone rooms. The amber and deep-blue tones read as both ancient and contemporary, and hold their own on a plaster, terracotta or deep-green wall.

Classical and archaeological motifs have returned through the ancient-modern and grand-tour revival in décor, where Roman ruins and Mediterranean palettes anchor a room. The Forum tile fits that direction without reading as a souvenir.

Above a sofa, most rooms want the Large or a four-tile Mural so the piece holds the wall. Above a console or in a hallway the Medium sits well, and a nine-tile Mural turns the Forum into a full focal wall.

Yes. For a backsplash, shower or any damp wall, order the tile in the Dura Satin or Matte finish rather than Glossy. Both resist scratches and steam, and the colour lives in the surface, so it will not fade with cleaning.

A soft microfibre cloth and water is all it needs. The colour is infused into the ceramic surface beneath a thin protective finish, so there is no print layer on top to wear away with regular wiping.

Yes. Every WenderVista piece is created in-house by Reid Wender in our Knoxville studio, in our own stained-glass and ink visual language. The Pompeii Forum tile is not a licensed photograph or a reproduction of another artist's work.