The house, which takes up the entire block, is a typical example of a Roman aristocratic home where the rooms are symmetrically and inter-axially located around the atrium and the peristylium.

At the centre of the severe façade made of tuff opens the monumental entrance framed with capitals typical of the mid-second century BC, the time when the house was constructed. It is remarkable to note an inscription painted in red and now protected with glass, one of seven in the Oscan language found in the city, which provided precise instructions to the troops, directing them towards certain places of defense if the enemy were to attack. The most iconic rooms open on to a large pool, originally decorated with a painting depicting fish, at the centre of the great peristylium, enhanced with 16 tuff columns.

As evidenced by the long lease notice, which has now been lost, painted in the adjacent alley, in the last period of Pompeii, the owner Gnaeus Alleius Nigidius Maius, a rich merchant from the Campania region and duoviri of the city in 55-56 AD, rented some property of the large estate.

Date of excavation: 1810; 1813-1815; 1824-1825; 1827; 1898; 1901; 1943.