Do the murals described in ANDROMEDA GRAPHIKA actually exist?

The frescoes in Pompeii’s Villa dei Misteri are, in both appearance and scholarly understanding, as Dr. Leatherwaite describes them in Chapter Thirteen. The villa’s name, meaning mysteries, refers not to puzzles but the paintings themselves, which depict a Dionysian “mystery”—that is, a secret rite in which a young woman is initiated into the cult of the half-Greek, half-Oriental god, Dionysus.

This is a photograph of the triclinium—the dining room where the aristocratic Romans feasted under the gaze of gods, unaware that Vesuvius was about to consume them. The far wall, the northeastern, depicts three incidents: scene four, the catoptromancy episode where the future is observed in a silver bowl (filled with mercury?); scene five, with the god Silenus lying back in ecstatic exhaustion (note the damage where the lava came flowing through); and scene six, with the initiate undergoing ritual flagellation by a winged goddess.

The frescoes are best viewed by arriving at Pompeii at opening time, turning left after entering and walking past the funerary monuments directly to the villa, situated a little out of town—you will likely have the place to yourself. Later, around noon, with Pompeii now crowded and sweltering, drive over the spine of the nearby Amalfi peninsula to Ravello and enjoy a leisurely lunch washed down with local wine in the cool of the hills while gazing out over the Gulf of Salerno glittering a thousand precipitous feet below.