Pompeii Awakened

A Story of Rediscovery

Judith Harris

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781845112417
• eBook ISBN: 9780857737212
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire antique

The rediscovery of the Roman cities overwhelmed by the rage of Vesuvius is one of history's most extraordinary adventure stories. Pompeii Awakened revels in that adventure, and tells of the re-emergence of a long-vanished cosmopolis which profoundly inspired a later age - from its arts and architecture to its science, sex and religion.

Notes

PREFACE

1 Pliny the Younger, Letters, Book VI, Letters XVI and XX.

CHAPTER I

1 Willem Jongman, The Economy and Society of Pompeii, Grieben, Amsterdam, 1988, on the shards at Ostia. In Pompeii, street signs were not written, but were small rectangular picture plaques of baked earthenware. Off the main Forum is one showing two men carrying on their shoulders a pole from which an amphora hangs; this was Amphorae Street.

2 Ray Laurence, Roman Pompeii, Space and Society, Routledge, London, 1994, p. 51.

3 Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Naturales Quaestiones, Book VI, 1, 3–4, AD 62, in Patrizia Antignani (ed.), Pompei e Ercolano: Monumenti e miti della Campania Felix, Pierro, Naples, 1996, p. 11.

4 L. Richardson, Jr., Pompeii: An Architectural History, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1988, p. 7.

5 Pliny the Younger, The Letters of Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, trans. Melmoth, Revd F.C.T. Bosanquet, George Bell and Son, London, 1895, Book VI, Letters XVI and XX, pp. 193–8, 200–4, slightly adapted for readability. Subsequent quotations are from the same letters.

6 University of Naples researchers Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo and Piero Paolo Petrone, “Studi scientifici sull’eruzione e i suoi effetti”, in Mario Pagano (ed.), Gli antichi ercolanesi, catalogue, Electa, Naples, 2000.

7 See Epilogue, on Murecine

8 Antonio Ghirelli, Storia di Napoli, Einaudi, Turin, 1973, pp. 25–7.

9 Domenico Fontana, diary entry 1592, in Carlo Bonucci, Pompei descritta da Carlo Bonucci architetto, 3rd edn, Naples, 1827; also in Antignani, Pompei e Ercolano, pp. 44–5.

CHAPTER II

1 D.A. Parrino, Nuova guida de forastieri per l’antichitá curiossime di Pozzuoli, Naples, 1709, cited in Patrizia Antignani (ed.), Il miglio d’oro, Pierro, Naples, 1996, p. 16.

2 Francesca Longo Auricchio traces his career in “Le prime scoperte a Ercolano”, Cronache Ercolanese, no. 27, 1997, p. 2.

3 Pagano, Gli antichi ercolanesi, p. 75.

4 The building was a Greek-style theatre built in the age of Augustus. For an idea of its interior finishing, visitors to Rome can see similar coloured marble panelling in situ in the restored interior of the Pantheon, which was built by the son-in-law of Augustus.

5 Pagano, Gli antichi ercolanesi, p. 79. A Greek theatre is open to the skies (though make sure that the sun will not disturb the viewers, Vitruvius had advised). In it the performers stand in the floor space called the orchestra, between stage and the rising tiers for seating. In the otherwise similar Roman theatre, the orchestra served for seating for politicians and important guests.

6 Some of the marble panelling recovered at that time are in the Church of Saint-Etienne at D’Elboeuf sur Seine.

7 Cited in Auricchio, “Le prime scoperte”, p. 3.

8 The statues are known as La Grande and the two Piccole Ercolanesi.

9 Joseph Addison, Remarks upon Several Parts of Italy, 1705, in Roger Hudson (ed.), The Grand Tour, Folio Society, London, 1993, pp. 189– 90.

10 Maria Forcellino, “La formazione e il metodo di Camillo Paderni”, Eutopia, vol. 11, no. 2, 1993, pp. 49–64.

11 Nicoletta Zanni, “Lettere di Camillo Paderni ad Allan Ramsay 1739– 1740”, Eutopia, vol. 11, no. 2, 1993, pp. 65–77.

12 Ibid., p. 76.

13 Letter to Allan Ramsay, 20 November 1739, in the British Museum and published in Forcellino, “La formazione e il metodo di Camillo Paderni”.

14 Charles de Brosses, Lettres sur Herculaneum, Paris, 1750, p. 276.

15 In Giuseppe Fiorelli, Giornale degli scavi di Pompei, Naples, 1861. Fiorelli, who directed the excavations at Pompeii after Italian unification, quotes from interviews circa 1765 made on site by the then excavations director Franscesco La Vega. Two of the original statues found by Alcubierre still stand in niches in the North Wing courtyard in the former Palazzo Caramanico, now a university institute. Giornale degli scavi di Pompei was the official site daily journal of excavations.

16 Zanni, “Lettere di Camillo Paderni ad Allan Ramsay”, p. 76.

17 Quoted in Christopher Charles Parslow, Rediscovering Antiquity: Karl Weber and the Excavation of Herculaneum, Pompeii and Stabiae, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995. p. 33. Unless otherwise specified, other details of these early excavations are from the official royal Cronache Ercolanensi; from archaeologist Amedeo Maiuri, Pompei, Libreria dello Stato, Rome, 1931, or “Anno X Era Fascista”. Especially regarding Karl Weber, Parslow’s excellent book was the result of five years of research in the Naples archives and is fascinating reading for all serious students of the 18th-century excavations of the Vesuvian area.

18 Michele Ruggiero, Storia degli scavi di Ercolano ricomposta su’ documenti superstiti, Naples, 1885, p. xiii.

19 De Brosses, Lettres sur Herculaneum, Letter to President Bouhier, 28 November 1739.

20 Parslow, Rediscovering Antiquity, p. 80.

21 Camillo Paderni, Monumenti antichi rinvenuti ne reali scavi di Ercolano e Pompej & delineati e spiegati da D. Camillo Paderni romano, undated. A facsimile reprint of this hand-written MS with no date has been published, with the authorization of the Biblioteca dell’Ecole de Rome, by Arte tipografica, Naples, 2000. The MS was an 1879 gift to the Ecole Française by a descendant of Napoleon.

CHAPTER III

1 Quoted in Benito Iezzi, “Viaggiatori Stranieri nell’Officina dei Papiri Ecolanesi”, in Marcello Gigante (ed.), Contributi all Storia dell Officina dei Papiri Ercolanesi, I Quaderni della Biblioteca nazionale di Napoli, series VI/I, vol. 2, I Papiri Erconanesi IV, Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, Rome, 1986, p. 163.

2 The sculpture has been on view to the public at the Naples Archaeological Museum since early 2000.

3 Padre Antonio Piaggio, in his Memorie diary (1769–1971), cited in Francesca Longo Auricchio and Mario Capasso, “I rotoli della villa ercolanese: Dislocazione e ritrovamento”, in Cronache Ercolanesi, vol. 17, Gaetano Macchiaroli, Naples, 1987, p. 38.

4 Iezzi, “Viaggiatori stranieri nell’officina dei papiri ercolanesi”, p. 165.

5 Ibid., Letter ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Foreword
• Introduction
• I. The Plutocrats of Pompeii
• II. Tunnels
• III. Papyrus
• IV. Dynasty, Neapolitan Style
• V. The Moon and Crabs
• VI. Vulcanology
• VII. Dirty and Other Pictures
• VIII. Running from Revolution
• IX. Napoleon’s Family Affair
• X. A Dark and Stormy Marriage
• XI. Rebels Among the Ruins
• XII. Victorians in Togas
• XIII. “M” is for Mussolini
• XIV. The Library at the End of the Tunnel
• Epilogue: Lost Again
• Notes
• Select Bibliography
• Picture Credits
• Plates