The Villa of the Mysteries is a patrician villa with two parts: one residential, which is notable for its luxury and finesse, and the other made up of outhouses given over to domestic or agricultural work and servants lodgings. In the masters' living quarters, the dining room has a splendid fresco: on a Pompeiian red background, it depicts the initiation of a young bride into the mysteries of the cult of Dionysus, which was much in vogue in southern Italy at the time.