Garden room, fresco from the Villa Arianna, Boscoreale. Photograph: Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Pompeii.

AD 79. In just 24 hours, Pompeii and Herculaneum on the Bay of Naples in southern Italy were buried by a catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Life and death in Pompeii and Herculaneum – on view at the British Museum until 29 September – exhibits over 250 objects, many never before seen outside of Italy and some that are recent discoveries. Jane Masséglia reviews it in The Art Newspaper.