Pompeii (Archaeological Histories) [2 ed.] 9781350125223, 9781350125216, 9781350125230, 9781350125247, 1350125229

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Pompeii

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ARCHAEOLOGICAL HISTORIES Series editors: Thomas Harrison, Duncan Garrow and Michele George An important series charting the history of sites, buildings and towns from their construction to the present day. Each title examines not only the physical history and uses of the site but also its broader context: its role in political history, in the history of scholarship, and in the popular imagination. Avebury, Mark Gillings and Joshua Pollard Dura-Europos, J. A. Baird Hadrian’s Wall: Creating Division, Matthew Symonds Knossos: Myth, History and Archaeology, James Whitley Pompeii, Alison E. Cooley Stonehenge: A Brief History, Mike Parker Pearson Tarquinia, Robert Leighton Troy: Myth, City, Icon, Naoíse Mac Sweeney Ur: The City of the Moon God, Harriet Crawford

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Pompeii Second Edition

Alison E. Cooley

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BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2018 This edition published 2023 Copyright © Alison E. Cooley, 2023 Alison E. Cooley has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. x constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover photograph by Yaopey Yong/Unsplash All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Cooley, Alison, author. Title: Pompeii / Alison E. Cooley. Description: Second edition. | New York : Bloomsbury Publishing, [2023] | Series: Archaeological histories | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2023017947 (print) | LCCN 2023017948 (ebook) | ISBN 9781350125223 (hardback) | ISBN 9781350125216 (paperback) | ISBN 9781350125230 (pdf) | ISBN 9781350125247 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Pompeii (Extinct city) | Vesuvius (Italy)—Eruption, 79. | Excavations (Archaeology)—Italy—Pompeii (Extinct city) Classification: LCC DG70.P7 C628 2023 (print) | LCC DG70.P7 (ebook) | DDC 937/.72568—dc23/eng/20230421 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023017947 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023017948 ISBN: HB: PB: ePDF: eBook:

978-1-3501-2522-3 978-1-3501-2521-6 978-1-3501-2523-0 978-1-3501-2524-7

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For my parents

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CONTENTS

List of Illustrations viii Acknowledgements x List of Abbreviations xi

Introduction

1

1 The Destruction of Pompeii 2 A Broken Sleep

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25

3 The Re-awakening

39

4 The Politics of Archaeology

59

5 The Popularization of Pompeii 6 The People of Pompeii 7 Rebuilding Pompeii

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93

109

Notes 125 Further Reading 143 Glossary 149 Timeline 151 Key Figures in the History of Pompeii’s Excavation 153 Bibliography 157 Index 183

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ILLUSTRATIONS

Plates 1 2 3 4 5

Jakob Philipp Hackert, The Excavations at Pompeii (1799) Jakob Philipp Hackert, ‘Eruption of Vesuvius in 1774’ Joseph Franque, Scene during the Eruption of Vesuvius (1826) Karl Briullov, The Last Day of Pompeii (1833) John Martin, The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum (1822, restored 2011) 6 Gustave Boulanger (1861) Rehearsal of ‘The Flute Player’ and ‘Wife of Diomedes’ at Prince Napoleon’s 7 Edward John Poynter, Faithful unto Death (1865) 8 Jakob Philipp Hackert/Georg Hackert, ‘View of the Theatre, Pompeii’ (1793), hand-coloured etching 9 Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Glaucus and Nydia (1867) 10 Lawrence Alma-Tadema, An Exedra (1869) 11 Lawrence Alma-Tadema, The Vintage Festival (1871) 12 Théodore Chassériau, Tepidarium (1853)

Figures 0.1 Eggs in a bowl, from Pompeii 1.1 Victims from House of the Golden Bracelet, VI.xvii.42 1.2 Cross-section through volcanic deposits from AD 79 eruption at Boscoreale, showing layers of pumice at the bottom, then surge and flow, and a petrified tree 1.3 Cast of a dog killed by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius, Pompeii. Albumen silver print: Giorgio Sommer, c. 1874 3.1 Seat-tomb of Mamia 3.2 Façade of a Pompeian shop (1771) 3.3 Watercolour by Pietro Fabris of the Temple of Isis (1776) 3.4 Temple of Isis, etching by Edouard Gautier-Dagoty after Louis Jean Desprez (1782) 3.5 Le antichità di Ercolano esposte (1762) Vol.3, plate 29 4.1 Photograph of Garibaldi at Pompeii, taken by Giorgio Sommer 5.1 Giorgio Sommer, surgical instruments in Naples Museum viii

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17 21 45 47 50 51 55 68 79

ILLUSTRATIONS

5.2 W. Gell, Pompeiana (1832), ‘Poet’s House Restored’ 5.3 B. J. Falk (c. 1903), No. 1 of Pain’s Spectacle, Coney Island. United States Coney Island New York 5.4 Stereoscopic photograph of The Pompeian Court, Crystal Palace by T. R. Williams, London c. 1850s 6.1 William Hamilton (1777), ‘XIV. Account of the discoveries at Pompeii’ 6.2 Jean Claude Richard, Abbé de Saint-Non, Voyage pittoresque de Naples et de Sicile (1782), ‘View of a cellar discovered at Pompeii’ 6.3 F. Mazois (1824), Les ruines de Pompéi: Joseph II encounters skeleton (engraver: Angelo Testa) 6.4 Harriet Hosmer, The Pompeian Sentinel (1878) 6.5 Casts of bodies found on 5 February, 1863. Albumen silver print by Sommer and Behles 6.6 Plaster cast made by Maiuri 6.7 Plaster cast of the ‘muleteer’ 7.1 Peristyle garden, ‘House of the Vettii’. Albumen silver print by Giorgio Sommer, 1870–90 7.2 Plaster casts of vine root and stake next to replanted vine, in Villa Regina, Boscoreale

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85 89 91 95

96 97 101 103 104 106 113 120

Maps 0.1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4

Map of Pompeii, showing buildings referred to in the text Map of the Bay of Naples Map showing the reach of the Pyroclastic Density Currents Map of Pompeii: find-spots of bodies in the pumice layer Map of Pompeii: find-spots of bodies in the ash layer, in streets and in open spaces 2.1 Sites around Pompeii with archaeological evidence dating from after the eruption in ad 79 4.1 Fiorelli’s system of Regiones

2 8 15 19 20 33 66

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

During the two decades that have passed since the first edition of this book, I have continued to profit from the rich resources of the library and archives of the British School at Rome. Staff in the library at London’s Institute of Classical Studies and the Bodleian Libraries have also offered practical assistance in supplying scans and books during the restrictions of the pandemic. I am grateful to staff at Bloomsbury Publishing and to the peer reviewers for their encouragement. I have benefited from recent conversation with Vicky Mills about Tauchnitz editions and am grateful to Melissa Gustin for sharing with me her work on Harriet Hosmer before publication. Steve Tuck also generously sent me advance copy of his work on Pompeii’s survivors. I would like to thank the Series Editors and anonymous readers for their helpful comments on the typescript, as well as the staff at Bloomsbury Academic Publishers for their prompt assistance. I remain indebted to my parents, Melvin, Emma, and Paul for their unstinting support. I am grateful to the following for their help in supplying illustrations: M. G. L. Cooley (Figure 1.2); L. H. Davies (Maps 1.1, 2.1 and 4.1); Estelle Lazer (Figures 1.1 and 6.6); and Haraldur Sigurdsson (Map 1.2). Alison E. Cooley Warwick March 2023

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ABBREVIATIONS

By convention, buildings at Pompeii are referred to by three numbers (such as I.x.4) whereby the first number (I) represents the region, or regio, the second (x) the town-block, or insula, and the third (4) the doorway. AE

Année Epigraphique

CIL

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum

PIR 2

Prosopographia Imperii Romani (2nd edn)

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xii

Introduction

Many a calamity has happened in the world, but never one that has caused so much entertainment to posterity as this one. J. W. VON GOETHE, ITALIAN JOURNEY 13 MARCH 17871

This is not a guidebook to the ruins of Pompeii, nor a history of the town in antiquity. Such books already exist in vast numbers, ranging from concise guides to lavish coffee-table books. Instead, it is a history of responses to the ruins, what has become known as ‘Pompeii’s double life’ – the life experienced by the town since its rediscovery in 1748 that complements its original lifetime before its destruction by Vesuvius in ad 79.2 This has been experienced both by its excavators and its visitors, such as Goethe. As such, it will interest visitors to the site who wish to gain some insight into how their own experiences of visiting Pompeii belong to a continuum dating back to the mid-eighteenth century. Apart from the fact that a much greater area of the town has been uncovered for exploration by today’s visitors compared with 270 years ago, how else has the experience of touring Pompeii changed over the intervening years and how have archaeological priorities been transformed? Pompeii has changed over the years as a result of new archaeological exploration. At the same time, the questions that people have chosen to ask of the evidence available to them have evolved, as have the issues they have chosen to analyse. Emotional responses to the site have been influenced by contemporary cultural artefacts such as novels, poetry, opera, films, paintings and sculpture. The diversity of the site, with its paintings and mosaics, houses and public buildings, tombs and human remains, carbonized fruits and household utensils, has stimulated many different interpretations of the site and its inhabitants ever since it was first identified as the ill-fated town of Pompeii. There appears virtually no limit to the number of questions that could be asked of our archaeological evidence. Investigations of the site have always been in dialogue with their historical and cultural contexts: contemporary politics have encouraged particular approaches, whilst advances in scientific and archaeological methods have created opportunities to ask new questions about the site and its inhabitants. 1

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MAP 0.1 Map of Pompeii, showing buildings referred to in the text. Note: Locations in Pompeii are identified conventionally by three numbers (such as I.x.4) whereby the first number (I) represents the region, the second (x) the town-block, and the third (4) the doorway.

INTRODUCTION

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This book does not provide a comprehensive history of the excavations. It selects significant moments when modern interpretations of the site have been influenced by political, cultural and social developments, or by advances in archaeological techniques and scientific knowledge. Consequently, it omits some of the highlights of Pompeii’s excavation history, such as the discovery in 1909 of the ‘Villa of Mysteries’ with its enigmatic paintings and the uncovering of the ‘House of the Menander’ (I.x.4) with its impressive silver treasure between 1926 and 1932.3 Readers may regret the omission of certain discoveries: alternative case studies may be found in the first edition of this book. Chapter One, ‘The Destruction of Pompeii’, traces how recent scientific advances have confirmed the terrifying way in which the town was destroyed, allowing us to understand how Vesuvius’ eruption was experienced specifically at Pompeii. Whereas Herculaneum received the full cataclysmic force of the eruption in the evening of 24 August ad 79, Pompeii’s distance from the volcano delayed its fate. The fact that Pompeii and Herculaneum suffered differently from the effects of the eruption has long been appreciated, but whereas earlier writers considered that the difference was that Herculaneum was buried under a mudslide and Pompeii under a blanket of ash and pumice, the horror of the pyroclastic density currents that overwhelmed both towns is now all too clear. New vulcanological research, inspired by the need to manage the risk of an eruption today, has resulted in fresh understanding of the eruption’s impact upon the formation of the site’s archaeological record. Chapter Two, ‘A Broken Sleep’, explores the ‘dark ages’ of Pompeii between its destruction in ad 79 and its official rediscovery in 1748. One of the commonest impressions people have of Pompeii is that the town’s burial in the eruption sealed it in some sort of time capsule. This impression has been encouraged by discoveries evocative of that last day, like the carbonized loaves of bread found in an oven or eggs still nestling in a bowl (Figure 0.1). Even the latest excavations have been supposed to retain traces of ‘the last meal cooked and perhaps never consumed’, of the inhabitants of one house.4 Nevertheless, the town did not lie undisturbed over the centuries. This is important for its implications of what we can expect to uncover – not an untouched mass of evidence, but a site whose sleep was disturbed over the ages. Chapters Three and Four, ‘The Re-awakening’ and ‘The Politics of Archaeology’, assess the impact of contemporary politics upon the excavation, publication and experience of the site during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The excavation of Pompeii by the Bourbon kings of Naples has often been characterized as a treasure-hunt (particularly by later anti-monarchist excavators and by northern European travellers critical of the Italian south), but an examination of contemporary documents suggests that this is not the whole story. From the 1770s onwards, we can view the town through the lenses of visitors for whom it became a compulsory stop on the Grand Tour, tracing its impact upon young and old alike, from the

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FIGURE 0.1 Eggs in a bowl, from Pompeii. Bridgeman Images DGA505605.

teenaged Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to the sexagenarian Sir Walter Scott in the last year of his life.5 Chapter Four explores how the pace and direction of excavations were affected by the political vicissitudes of the nineteenth century: the Bourbons were exiled and replaced by Napoleon’s family, only to return from exile and then be expelled once more as the Risorgimento movement gathered impetus under the leadership of Garibaldi. This heralded a decisive moment for the site, with the emergence of Giuseppe Fiorelli as its new Director. He promoted a more systematic and scientific approach not only to excavation but also to the documentation of the excavations. The site and its artefacts no longer belonged to the king of Naples, but to the new Italian state. Chapter Five, ‘The Popularization of Pompeii’, stays in the nineteenth century, illustrating how Pompeii ceased to be the preserve of the upper classes. A wider range of visitors started to arrive, whilst Pompeii was brought to the attention of mass audiences for the first time via popular spectacles presented in England and America and through the success of Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novel The Last Days of Pompeii. The construction of The Pompeian Court at London’s Crystal Palace consolidated the ascendency of Pompeii over Herculaneum in the popular imagination.

INTRODUCTION

5

The final two chapters shift to a thematic approach, exploring how excavators have dealt with two distinctive attributes of the town. Chapter Six, ‘The People of Pompeii’, tracks fundamental shifts in attitudes towards the human remains found in the town. Skeletal remains provoked strong emotions in viewers, inspiring stories, poetry and artworks. The introduction of the practice of making casts of the victims generated even stronger feelings of horror at the thought of those victims’ final agonies, discouraging further romanticising of the town and its fate, although individuals’ life-stories continued to be invented around them. Recent re-examination of these casts encourages a more measured interpretation, calling into question both the accuracy and the justification of the impulse to indulge in storytelling about the individuals who died in the eruption. The application of modern scientific methods to studying the skeletons of Vesuvius’ victims has allowed our knowledge of the people of Pompeii to go beyond the realm of imagination. Chapter Seven, ‘Rebuilding Pompeii’, illustrates how problems of conserving what was being exposed through excavation were debated right from the start of the site’s exploration. It tracks a significant change of direction towards the end of the nineteenth century, which saw attempts to bring the site alive for visitors by reconstructing houses as showcases evoking the lives of the people of Pompeii. This marked a major shift away from removing finds from the site to Naples Archaeological Museum, instead recreating houses and leaving the paintings, furniture and other domestic apparatus in situ. Attempts had long been made to reconstruct the buildings of Pompeii on paper but reconstructing them in reality fundamentally changed visitors’ experiences of the site. A different type of rebuilding was necessitated following the Second World War, after Allied bombardment in 1943 caused extensive damage. During the 1960s and 1970s, the townscape of Pompeii was transformed by the research of Wilhelmina Jashemski, who drew attention to the natural environment of the site, revealing how many areas of the town, large and small, were planted for ornamental, practical and commercial purposes with trees, bushes, shrubs and flowers. The appearance of the Pompeii visited by tourists today owes as much to modern rebuilding and reconstruction as it does to the discoveries of its initial excavators.6

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1 The Destruction of Pompeii

A cloud was rising from a mountain (those seeing it from far away could not tell which, but it was later known to be Vesuvius). Its appearance can best be expressed by comparing it to an umbrella pine, for carried up to a very great height as if on a tree-trunk, it began to spread out into various branches. This was, I believe, because it was lifted up by the fresh blast, then as that died down, defeated by its own weight, it began to disperse far and wide. Sometimes it was white, sometimes dirty and speckled, according to how much soil and ash it carried. PLINY THE YOUNGER, Letters 6.16.5–61

An eye-witness account One of the many remarkable features of the eruption of Vesuvius in ad 79 is that two letters were written many years later by the Roman senator Pliny the Younger (ad 61–c. 113), looking back on how he had witnessed the catastrophe aged seventeen, roughly twenty-seven years earlier.2 He had been staying with his uncle at Cape Misenum, a promontory on the northern side of the Bay of Naples, 30 kilometres to the west of the volcano (see Map 1.1). The Elder Pliny (ad c. 23–79) was in command of the Roman fleet stationed at the naval base there, but he also had a keen interest in natural phenomena, having just finished writing an encyclopaedic Natural History. The first letter narrates how Pliny the Elder at first intended to investigate the unusual natural phenomenon out of curiosity: at about the seventh hour [i.e., around 12–1 p.m.], my mother pointed out to him that a cloud of unusual size and form was appearing. . . . He called for his sandals and climbed up to the place from which that phenomenon could best be seen. . . . To a man of my uncle’s great intellect, it seemed important and worth learning about from closer at hand. Letters 6.16.4–7 In his discussion of volcanoes in his Natural History (2.236–38), Pliny had not included Vesuvius alongside other volcanoes like Etna, even though 7

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POMPEII

MAP 1.1 Map of the Bay of Naples [L. H. Davies].

near-contemporary authors like Strabo and Diodorus of Sicily had observed that Vesuvius had once been an active volcano.3 This is not surprising given that the last eruption had occurred some seven hundred years earlier.4 Indeed, Spartacus and his band of seventy-three runaway gladiators had even encamped within the crater during their revolt against Rome in 73–71 BC .5 Even though the elevated headland would have provided excellent views across the bay, Pliny was prompted to set out towards the mysterious cloud in order to find out more about it. On then receiving a message from a friend who lived at the foot of Vesuvius, his mission changed to a humanitarian one, with the aim of rescuing as many people as possible who were trapped in harm’s way. The Elder Pliny’s mission ended, however, in his death upon the shores of the Bay of Naples at Stabiae, 16 kilometres to the south of the volcano. The Younger Pliny wrote his letters in response to a request from the historian Tacitus for details of the circumstances of his uncle’s death, which he wanted to record for posterity in his history. Tacitus’ Histories covered the period from ad 69 to ad 96, but only Books 1–4 and part of Book 5 dealing with ad 69–70 survive, so we do not know how Tacitus incorporated the material sent to him by Pliny. Even though Pliny was supplying Tacitus with a narrative of his uncle’s last hours rather than with a scientific account of the eruption, the extract above illustrates how he also attempted to record his observations of the eruption in a way worthy of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History. The accuracy of his description of the eruption has resulted in

THE DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII

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similar explosive eruptions being now named ‘Plinian’. The second letter (6.20) adds an account of the eruption from the perspective of Pliny the Younger at Misenum, where he had opted to stay with his mother so that he could continue reading Livy’s history. The letters contain realistic descriptions of the hazards encountered by the Elder Pliny at Stabiae (‘the buildings were shaking with frequent and severe tremors and seemed to be swaying to and fro as if removed from their own foundations. . . there was the fear of falling pumice stones, even though these were light and porous’) and those experienced by the Younger Pliny and his mother at Misenum (‘we experienced many remarkable and terrifying phenomena. The carriages which we had ordered to be brought began to move in different directions although the ground was quite level and they did not even stay still when secured by stones placed in their tracks. In addition, we watched the sea apparently sucked out and driven back by the earthquake’). Pliny’s letters are particularly valuable, therefore, inasmuch as they provide two different geographical perspectives on the eruption, giving a survivor’s view of the calamity. They form the starting point for all accounts of the eruption, even those of modern volcanologists. Pliny starts his account of the eruption with a date – ‘the ninth day before the Kalends of September’ [i.e., 24 August] – but even this basic fact is not uncontroversial, given variations in the manuscript tradition, as noted as long ago as 1709 by Jean Masson in his biography of Pliny the Younger.6 A thorough analysis of Pliny’s manuscripts suggests that August is the month indicated by Pliny, even though scholars have debated whether or not the archaeological evidence supports a different date during the autumn (October or November).7 Some of the arguments proposed in favour of a later month are rather weak: people wrapping themselves up in woollen clothing in August is not so odd as the prospect of Pompeians venturing out into the falling ash and pumice wearing only lightweight summer clothing for protection.8 Some archaeobotanical evidence points towards an autumnal context for the eruption.9 It is possible that such fruits may have been imported or stored from a previous season if found in small quantities, whilst it is not always clear whether remains represent fresh or dried fruit. The discovery of over a ton of pomegranates stored between layers of straw in Villa B at Oplontis points to this being local produce, which would normally be harvested in late September or October. Another possibility, however, is that these pomegranates had been picked when not yet ripe, for use in tanning leather or wine-making.10 Further evidence can be linked to produce grown locally. In both the Villa Regina and Villa della Pisanella at Boscoreale just to the north of Pompeii, large storage jars for grape-must (the mush from the first pressing) were discovered, mostly covered over and still sealed. Such storage would be most plausible from October onwards, after the new vintage had been harvested and pressed towards the end of September, with the storage jars remaining unopened until the following spring.11 In August, by contrast, it is more likely that the jars would have

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POMPEII

been empty, ready for the new vintage. Finally, the remains of stalks and pips from wine-making were also found in villas at Terzigno and Oplontis.12 Other types of evidence have also been marshalled in favour of an autumnal date. It is suggested that the prevailing high-altitude wind from the north-west, which distributed the volcano’s tephra (pumice and lithics) fallout to its southeast, is more typical of the period between October and June than August.13 The debate appeared to be finally settled by the discovery in 1974 (published in 2006) of a hoard containing over 220 gold and silver coins from the eruption layer in the House of the Golden Bracelet (VI. xvii.42). This was found with the bodies of two adults and two children, who had taken refuge in a small alcove on the stairway (Figure 1.1). One of the silver coins (inv. IV.754; P14312/176) depicting Capricorn on a globe was published as having a legend that would date its production beyond 8 September. The coin, however, was initially published without a photograph, given its poor condition, and it was only when it came to the British Museum for an exhibition in 2013 that high resolution photographs were made. These indicated that the legend had a slight but significant difference from the way it had been published.14 As a result, it would have been minted in July or August, still potentially reaching Pompeii with impressive speed had it arrived before the end of August. None of this evidence is decisive in proving an autumn date, whilst Pliny remains a contemporary witness to August.15

FIGURE 1.1 Victims from House of the Golden Bracelet, VI.xvii.42. Photograph: Estelle Lazer. By permission of the Ministry of Culture – Archaeological Park of Pompeii; further reproduction or duplication by any means is forbidden.

THE DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII

11

Sequencing the eruption Despite the detailed eye-witness accounts of the eruption from Pliny, which are crucial for providing us with a chronological framework for the course of the eruption, our picture of how Vesuvius engulfed Pompeii would still be very incomplete were it not for volcanological research into eruptions of other volcanoes in modern times as well as continuing study of the deposits left behind by Vesuvius in 79.16 A typical view of Pompeii’s destruction can be found in Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s ‘Letter on the Discoveries at Herculaneum’ of 1762, which proposed that Pompeii had been ‘covered with a fine layer of ash. . .the lava could not flow that far’.17 Ash was, however, far from the only problem suffered by Pompeii and its people. Such a misconception resulted from the fact that the eruption of 79 was thankfully a rare type of explosion, with only eight such eruptions of Vesuvius over the past 25,000 years.18 Winckelmann will have been influenced by contemporary observations of an eruption in 1760 and by the partial uncovering of Pompeii at the time. Since 79, Vesuvius has erupted over thirty times, most violently on 16 December 1631 when the volcano came to life having been dormant for roughly three hundred years. This eruption was only sub-plinian in character, but it still caused thousands of deaths and destroyed ten towns.19 The most recent eruption was in March 1944 as Allied troops landed during the liberation of Italy. Its magnitude has tended to be underestimated, perhaps in comparison with the huge suffering experienced by the local population during the war, but two towns were largely destroyed by lava flows, rendering 2,750 people homeless. Twenty-six people lost their lives because of roofs collapsing from the accumulation of tephra fallout. Pyroclastic density currents of limited range occurred, whilst ash reached as far as Albania, 450 kilometres away.20 It was, however, the explosive eruption of Mt Pelée on Martinique (West Indies) on 8 May 1902 which first prompted speculation on the full horror of Vesuvius’ most notorious eruption. Only three of the c. 28,000 inhabitants of St Pierre survived. One of these was a prisoner protected by the thick walls of his cell, who subsequently made his living as a side-show attraction at the Barnum and Bailey Circus. Marino Leboffe, the Neapolitan captain of an Italian ship, rescued his crew by ignoring the prohibition on sailing imposed by the port authorities, observing ‘I know nothing about Mount Pelée, but if Vesuvius were looking the way your volcano looks this morning, I’d get out of Naples’. All other inhabitants were instantly killed by pyroclastic density currents.21 This eruption was all the more horrifying because La Commission sur le Vulcan, whose members included science teachers, pharmacists and physicians, had been convened in the light of the volcano’s increase in activity during the weeks before the eruption, to assess whether or not there was a need for evacuation, concluding that the safety of the city’s population was ‘absolutely assured’.22 The relevance of Mt Pelée for understanding Vesuvius was noted in two articles in 1918 and 1920 by

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Merrill, but did not attract much agreement until many of Merrill’s acute observations were vindicated in later scientific articles.23 Mt Pelée raised the possibility that Vesuvius’ eruption in 79 had been on a quite different scale of violence from those in modern times. Its true horror came to be appreciated fully only in light of the eruption of Mt St Helens (Washington State) in the Pacific North-West region of the United States on 18 May 1980. Interest in reconstructing the course of the eruption in detail has a Januslike quality: not only does it allow us to understand better how the archaeological record of 79 was created, but it is relevant to calculating future eruptions of Vesuvius. The nature of the eruption governed what was left behind for archaeologists to dig up as well as how it was sealed by deposits emanating from the volcano. On a basic level, for example, it is not valid to derive a pattern for the everyday use of coinage in the town from coins found next to skeletons, as illustrated by the forty gold and 173 silver coins but only one copper coin found next to the victims in the House of the Golden Bracelet (VI.xvii.42).24 This is a reflection of the victims’ attempts to salvage as much wealth as possible, rather than to equip themselves for a day’s shopping. By contrast, bronze coins are more prominent in other types of contexts not connected with bodies, such as in houses and shops.25 The crux of the matter is an appreciation that Vesuvius’ eruption in 79 was highly explosive, with devastating pyroclastic density currents. In the last couple of decades, archaeologists and vulcanologists have collaborated in seeking to understand the main outline of events during the eruption. Recent painstaking excavations have permitted a more detailed picture of these events to be recreated.26

Time chart of the eruption (indicative timings derived from Pliny) 24th August Morning

EU1 (Eruption Unit) Eruption begins with phreatomagmatic explosion, as groundwater interacts with magma within the volcano: thin layer of ash to the east.

Plinian phase

EU2

Midday

Formation of eruptive column resembling umbrella pine, seen by Pliny.

Early afternoon

White pumice and lithics begin to fall, borne to the southeast of Vesuvius by prevailing stratospheric winds from northwest.

Early evening

Buildings collapse under the weight of accumulated pumice. Some people try to flee; others take refuge inside houses.

THE DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII

c. 8 p.m. Pyroclastic phase

13

EU3 Magma composition changes to higher density grey pumice. Partial collapse of column. Pyroclastic density current (PDC1) overwhelms Herculaneum.

25th August Early hours

Eruptive column reaches highest point (c. 33 km), maximum discharge of magma.

1–2 a.m.

PDCs 2–3 reach Herculaneum, Oplontis and Boscoreale. Grey pumice falls; lull at Pompeii: some people leave shelter. Column rises again to c. 33 km.

Dawn

EU4 Column collapses. PDCs 4–5 swoop down over Pompeii within a couple of hours, extending first to north wall, then over the whole town, bringing death to all remaining in the area. PDC6 reaches as far as Stabiae and across the Bay to Misenum.

From 8 a.m.

EU5 Further PDCs.

Final phase

EU6 caldera collapse. EU7 PDCs. EU8 phreatomagmatic activity.

The eruption consisted of two major phases, with a brief lull in between them. The first Plinian phase is recorded as having started around 12–1 p.m. on 24 August, but the eruption must have begun before the formation of the curious cloud observed from Misenum. The presence of a thin deposit of ash up to 15 centimetres deep over an extensive area of up to 20 kilometres from Vesuvius suggests that the explosion which produced Pliny’s cloud did not mark the very start of the eruption. This layer of ash lies in the area to the east of Vesuvius, since the initial eruptive column was relatively low and so subject to low-level local winds. The first phase then lasted for several hours, gradually creating a layer of white pumice (c. 140 centimetres) over approximately the next seven hours and then grey pumice above it (c. 130 centimetres). After a lull in activity during the early hours of the following morning, a second phase began which was much more violent and destructive for Pompeii, with any people remaining in the town overwhelmed by the pyroclastic density currents that swept down from the volcano. The volcano exploded with such immense force that magma and ash were vomited forth to heights of 20 to 30 kilometres above the volcano’s vent, propelled by highly pressurized gases. Some sense of the extraordinary character of such a blast may be gained by comparison with the initial explosion of Mt St Helens, which has been calculated as the equivalent of a ten-megaton bomb, five hundred times the size of the one that devastated Hiroshima.27 Vesuvius’ explosion formed the cloud which Pliny memorably

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compared with the umbrella pine trees so common in the region. This cloud – a high, static column of gases and volcanic materials – contained pumice and ash that was carried downwind by prevailing winds in the stratosphere from the north-west, and which gradually fell to the ground in order of weight, forming layers of pumice that decreased with distance from the crater. The first phase consisted of sodium-rich phonolitic white pumice and lithics, which may have begun falling upon Pompeii roughly thirty minutes after the explosion, continuing into the early evening. During this phase of the eruption, the pumice was not being deposited too heavily, perhaps at a rate of about 15 centimetres an hour, but it built up inexorably, exerting pressure upon the roofs of houses until finally these gave way under the cumulative weight. Given that the typical house roofs were of a sloping design, it is likely that pumice accumulated more quickly in some places, at 25 to 30 centimetres per hour, so that roofs began to collapse after about six hours. Fragments of tiles and bricks from collapsed buildings have been found towards the top of this initial layer of pumice (although their presence in some cases may have been caused by the subsequent surge rather than by the pumice fall).28 The fall of pumice to the southeast of the volcano was not life-threatening, given the material’s low density, but the rapid descent of the denser, larger lithic fragments ripped from the inner walls of the volcano might have been fatal on impact. These fist-sized fragments were much rarer, making up only around 10 per cent of the total fall. Nevertheless, about 400 victims were found in the initial layers of pumice, some of whom were killed by falling masonry rather than by the pumice [Map 1.3]. One body was discovered beneath part of the portico that had collapsed in the Large Palaestra (II. vii).29 Another body, found under a column that had toppled down in the Forum beside the Temple of Jupiter, may have suggested to the novelist Bulwer-Lytton a fitting end for the priest of Isis who featured as the villain in The Last Days of Pompeii (1834).30 People would have been able to attempt to escape, but it would have been difficult, given the unevenness of the surface underfoot from earth tremors and the build-up of pumice, not to mention the artificial darkness created by the eruption which inspired Bulwer-Lytton to invent a dramatic conclusion to his novel. Even further away, at Stabiae, Pliny’s account gives an impression of the difficulties faced by people trying to flee: ‘They put cushions on their heads, tied with cloth, as protection against falling objects. Now it was day elsewhere; there it was night, blacker and denser than any night, though many torches and various lights broke it up’ (Letters 6.16.15–17). After white pumice had been falling for several hours, probably at an increasingly dense rate, the next stage in the eruption was marked by a change to potassium-rich phonotephritic grey pumice, as the eruption column increased in height to around 33 kilometres. Following this, there was a moment of relative quiet during the eruption in the early hours of the 25 August. Excavations in the area of the ‘House of the Chaste Lovers’ (IX.

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xii.6–7) identified for the first time a layer of grey ash and pisolites (pea-like rounded grains of limestone) between the pumice layer of the ‘Plinian’ phase and the first surge layer. This suggests the passing of time between the eruption’s two main phases. At this stage, it appears, people decided to venture out into the streets, only to find their way barred by the accumulation of pumice.31 This was the danger that had persuaded the friends of Pliny the Elder to awaken him at Stabiae: ‘The level of the courtyard from which his rooms were approached had so risen, by being filled with ashes mixed with pumice, that any further delay in the bedroom would have been prevented escape’ (Letters 6.16.14). The discovery of lanterns near bodies and holes cut through the walls of houses are as likely to belong to these temporary survivors of the eruption as to explorers returning to the site at some later date. The lull should not have been welcomed, since it merely heralded the fact that the volcano was about to embark upon its most violent period of activity, a sequence of pyroclastic density currents, each one more powerful and far-reaching than the last (Map 1.2). The pyroclastic density currents (PDC) consisted of gravity-driven surges and flows. The upper part, a surge of hot gas and volcanic matter, was very fast moving, streaming down the slopes of the volcano in a turbulent cloud at up to 300 kilometres per hour so as to reach Pompeii in a mere six

MAP 1.2 Map showing the reach of the Pyroclastic Density Currents. Reproduced from Sigurdsson/Carey (2002), 61 figure 53. By kind permission of H. Sigurdsson.

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minutes, because it contained a low density of solid particles leaving behind a thin deposit. The lower part, the flow, by contrast, contained a high concentration of solid particles, carrying larger rock fragments and pumice transformed into a liquid-like flow by tremendous heat at temperatures mostly between 240–340 °C (estimated by measuring the thermal remanent magnetization of lithic and pumice fragments in pyroclastic deposits and of tile fragments embedded in them),32 and so it advanced less rapidly, at speeds of 65 to 80 kilometres per hour. Consequently, the flow’s direction tended to be channelled by the natural topography and by the pattern of streets and buildings in the town. The flow left behind thick layers between one and three metres deep. In eruptions from modern times too, the surge leaves behind only a thin layer of ash, sometimes only a few centimetres deep, and yet its destructive force is awe-inspiring. In the eruption of Mt Pelée, the surge caused sixteen steamships to capsize in the harbour of St Pierre, it wrecked masonry walls that were 1 metre thick and its impetus propelled a 3-ton statue of the Virgin Mary over a distance of 12 metres from its pedestal.33 Likewise, the blast from Mt St Helens treated tall mature trees like matchsticks, as it flattened an entire pine forest for kilometres around. These awesome forces are caused by changes in the nature of the eruption. In the case of Vesuvius, recent study of the PDC deposits revealed that the partial collapses of the eruptive column resulted from fluctuations in the quantity and density of different volcanic materials being ejected (pumice, juvenile clasts consisting of the pyroclastic material derived directly from magma reaching the surface) and from the widening of the conduit that led to more wall-rock from the volcano being added to the mix.34 The changes in the eruptive material can be tracked in the deposits still to be seen in the Vesuvian region (Figure 1.2). The first PDCs failed to reach Pompeii, stopping short at Oplontis and Boscoreale. A few hours later, at daybreak on the 25 August, no rays of sunlight penetrated the darkness that enveloped Pompeii. At this point, a more powerful surge extended to the northern parts of the town. This surge demolished parts of the town’s walls, so that the subsequent flow proceeded unimpeded beyond this. The denser part of the flow was channelled along the streets, carrying along debris, such as tiles, bricks and beams. The less dense parts of the flow charged over the tops of the houses, continuing way beyond the town, even over the Lattari mountains, disgorging ash. Pompeii was then devastated by further super-heated avalanches in short succession during the early morning hours. A surge that penetrated deep into Pompeii killed about 650 people in the town. Consequently, the bodies of these victims have been found in the upper part of the pumice layer, in between the thin deposits produced by PDCs. Their burial was then completed by the deeper layer formed by further PDCs, and by the final fall of pumice.35 Excavation in the area of the ‘House of the Chaste Lovers’ (IX.xii.6–7) has identified a thin ash layer on top of the initial layer of pumice, representing the PDC that brought an end to the Plinian phase of the eruption. Further

THE DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII

FIGURE 1.2 Cross-section through volcanic deposits from AD 79 eruption at Boscoreale, showing layers of pumice at the bottom, then surge and flow, and a petrified tree. Photograph: M. G. L. Cooley. By permission of the Ministry of Culture – Archaeological Park of Pompeii; further reproduction or duplication by any means is forbidden.

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PDCs extended further south, also covering Pompeii with up to 180 centimetres of material, knocking down the walls of buildings which still stood out above the accumulation of volcanic debris. This PDC proceeded as far as Bottaro and then Stabiae beyond Pompeii to the south, where the Elder Pliny died and even crossed the waters of the Bay of Naples to reach Misenum. The last phreatomagmatic stage in the eruption consisted of a final explosion that deposited a layer of 60 to 80 centimetres of fine ash above the ground surge layers at Pompeii.

The eruption’s impact A total of 1,150 bodies had been identified at Pompeii by 2003.36 Even taking into account the likelihood that significant numbers of victims (especially children) may have remained un-noted by early excavators, there is a chance that a good proportion of the town’s population may have escaped to safety. Given the likely sequence of events, had the inhabitants started to flee as the first pumice and ash fell upon the town, they would have had time to cover some kilometres. Nevertheless, it would only have been feasible to try to escape on foot or by animal, and the obvious direction to take would have been away from the volcano, heading to the south, but this was also downwind of the eruption, and so progress would have been continually hampered by the volcano’s fallout. The grim possibility remains that people may have paused to gather together their belongings and may not have been able to flee very fast in the confusion caused by the combination of darkness, falling pumice and ash and earth tremors. Forty-eight victims, some with jewellery, which they may have been trying to salvage, were discovered beyond the town’s walls, in the direction of the ancient harbour, where no escape-route lay open to them by sea.37 It is all too likely that hundreds of the volcano’s victims still lie buried in the countryside beyond the town’s walls, in addition to the more than 170 victims already identified in areas surrounding the ancient town.38 Whilst some of Vesuvius’ victims would have been asphyxiated by the hot gases contained in the ash-laden cloud, many were killed by thermal shock. This resulted in an instantaneous muscular stiffening associated with instant violent death, reflected in the poses of some of the victims’ plaster casts, many of which indicate that the skeletons remained intact, with no major exterior trauma. Typical of this fate is the so-called ‘pugilistic pose’ illustrated by the two adults from the House of the Golden Bracelet (VI.xvii.42) (see Figure 1.1).39 Once the eruption shifted to its pyroclastic phase, there was no chance of escape. Those who had taken shelter inside buildings and who had awaited a lull in the eruption before venturing forth would have suffered a speedy demise. This pattern of human and volcanic activity is reflected in the distribution of the find-spots of bodies (Map 1.3 and Map 1.4).40 About 650 bodies have been found in the layers of ash resulting from the PDCs

MAP 1.3 Map of Pompeii: find-spots of bodies in the pumice layer. Adapted from E. De Carolis, G. Patricelli, A. Ciarallo, ‘Rinvenimenti di corpi umani nell’area urbana di Pompei’, Rivista di studi pompeiani 9 (1998) 80, figure 8. By permission of the Ministry of Culture – Archaeological Park of Pompeii; further reproduction or duplication by any means is forbidden. 19

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MAP 1.4 Map of Pompeii: find-spots of bodies in the ash layer, in streets and in open spaces. Adapted from E. De Carolis, G. Patricelli, A. Ciarallo, ‘Rinvenimenti di corpi umani nell’area urbana di Pompei’, Rivista di studi pompeiani 9 (1998) 82, figure 10. By permission of the Ministry of Culture – Archaeological Park of Pompeii; further reproduction or duplication by any means is forbidden.

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and 394 bodies in the initial pumice layer. Far more of the former category of bodies than those found in the pumice layer were discovered in the streets, open spaces and near the town’s gates. Many of these victims were heading in a southerly direction, away from the volcano. In general, bodies in the pumice layer, by contrast, have tended to be found within private buildings, where most were probably killed by collapsing masonry, suffering fractures to the skull. Ironically, it is the layer of fine ash left by the PDC covering the bodies that has been the archaeologist’s best friend in allowing casts to be made of the bodies that reveal fine details, such as the chain collar which prevented a dog from escaping (Figure 1.3; see further, Chapter 6). It was not the fall of pumice that claimed these victims, but the violence of the PDC. Similarly paradoxical is the protective capacity of the pumice that fell during the eruption: it was the very build-up of pumice that protected the lower sections of buildings in the town from violent destruction by the PDCs, so that what we see today on site are the parts protected by the earlier phase in the eruption. By contrast, the parts of the buildings still protruding above the pumice were subsequently subjected to the full force of the PDCs, with upper floors being demolished by their impact.

FIGURE 1.3 Cast of a dog killed by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius, Pompeii. Albumen silver print: Giorgio Sommer, c. 1874 [84.XP.677.31], Getty Museum Images, https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/1046SV.

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The PDCs that engulfed Pompeii had further devastating impact upon people and places that resisted them. The walls of buildings that were aligned east-west suffered the full force of the PDCs striking against them, in contrast to those aligned north-south in the same direction as the flow of the PDCs. The violence of the PDCs was heightened still more where they were directed down narrow alleys or constricted within buildings. A gruesome illustration of this came to light in an alley off the ‘Street of Abundance’, next to the ‘House of the Chaste Lovers’ (IX.xii.6–7). The skeleton of a victim was shattered by the force of the PDC, since the body lay across its path. Man-made materials, such as tiles and bricks, being hurtled along by the flow, together with its load of volcanic debris, must have sliced off the parts of the body which had not yet been completely covered over by deposits, leaving behind only its right side in the place where the victim had died. As a result, the skeleton lacks its left arm and leg, and half of its skull. Its left foot, however, remained because it was up against a wall, where the layers of debris had built up a little more, protecting it. Another skeleton in this area had also suffered violence, its backbone being broken in several places, and its skull smashed,41 whilst in the neighbouring ‘House of Polybius’ (IX.xiii.1), the head of one skeleton was discovered 30 centimetres above the floor in the north-eastern corner of a room, whilst the remaining part of the body was found in the opposite corner. Intensive archaeological research informed by the new understanding of PDCs, carried out at a locality in Pompeii which had been previously unexcavated, provides a much more complex picture of the impact of the eruption upon the formation of the archaeological record. It reminds us of the benefits of leaving some areas of the site unexcavated, since scientific advances can then be applied to fresh evidence. It is now appreciated that an assessment has to be made of the comparative vulnerability of the object to being displaced in the eruption and of the actual type of eruptive force that affected it, whether surge, flow, or earthquake, alongside the customary archaeological practice of identifying the exact stratigraphic layer in which an object was uncovered.42 The various phases of the eruption had their own characteristics, and impacted upon the fabric of the town in different ways. The eruption itself, therefore, caused widespread damage to the town’s fabric, with the result that what archaeologists uncover is by no means a pristine site cocooned in a blanket of pumice and ash. In addition, even more disturbance in the archaeology of the site had already been caused by earth tremors during the period from ad 62 to 79.43 Contemporary sources, such as Seneca the Younger in his Natural Questions (6.1.1), described the severe impact of an earthquake lasting several days in February ad 62: We have heard, my dear Lucilius, that Pompeii, a busy town in Campania, has subsided under an earthquake. It is situated where the shore of Sorrento and Stabiae from the one side and from the other the shore of

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Herculaneum come together and encircle with a beautiful bay the sea where it has been brought in from open waters. All the surrounding areas have also been affected.44 The effects both of this earthquake and of subsequent tremors can be seen widely in the town in both public and private buildings, where earthquake damage has been repaired. In many places, cracks in walls have been repaired with reused materials, such as bits of tile and brick, and sometimes with unorthodox materials, including fragments of amphoras and mosaic. Many repairs are easily identifiable by an abrupt change in building materials. At one end of town, columns in the Large Palaestra (II.vii) were strengthened with brick-work and internal corridors within the Amphitheatre reinforced with brick buttressing, whilst at the other end of the ‘Street of Abundance’ the last part of the southern façade of the Building of Eumachia along the street, where it abuts the Forum, shows an unexpected switch to brick construction. Repairs were in progress at the time of the eruption, as indicated by lime, pieces of mosaic and sand piled up in preparation for rewalling and re-flooring. Only part of the podium of the ‘Temple of Venus’ had been built, and stone was found stockpiled and cut in readiness for use in the temple’s podium and walls, along with some marble entablature pieces and a half-finished Corinthian capital. Similarly, the vaulted roofs in the warm-room and hot-room of the men’s section of the ‘Stabian Baths’ (VII.i.8) remained in a state of disrepair.45 Some householders were unlucky enough to need repeated repairs: in both the ‘House of the Gilded Cupids’ (VI.xvi.7) and the ‘House of Fabius Rufus’ (VII insula occidentalis 19–23), it appears that initial damage was repaired, damaged again, and again repaired. It is likely that repeated earth tremors prompted some householders to move away from Pompeii altogether. Consequently, some artefact assemblages recovered from the site reflect disturbance to living conditions during the final years before the eruption, even though the people who stayed in Pompeii simultaneously pursued activities of redevelopment and redesign.46 Vesuvius transformed the landscape around it, depositing upon it more than 3 kilometres3 of volcanic debris, but its effects reached much more widely too, with ash and pumice falling over thousands of kilometres. The third-century author Cassius Dio describes how ‘The whole cloud of dust was so great that some of it reached Africa, Syria and Egypt; it also reached Rome, filling the sky above it and darkening the sun’.47 Little did he know that the tephra fallout had reached as far as the Arctic Circle: traces of tephra particles, whose chemical composition is consistent with an origin in Vesuvius, have been found deep in Greenland’s ice core.48 The continued outpouring of scientific research analysing the eruption is not, of course, driven solely by a spirit of historical enquiry. Today, Vesuvius is regarded as the world’s most dangerous volcano because of the population of more than half a million crowded into the ‘Red Zone’, a region of about 350 km2 across twenty-five municipalities defined by the Department for Civil Protection as

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most at risk from an eruption.49 Even though people today should be only too aware of the potential dangers, there appears to be a false sense of security generated by Vesuvius’ decades of inaction so that the region remains severely over-populated. An assessment of population density carried out in 2008 based on census data from 2001 estimated that most of the Red Zone has 1,000 inhabitants per km2, but seventeen municipalities have over 5,000. Part of this region contains the highest population density in Italy, with Portici containing 13,323 inhabitants per km2.50 At least three days would be needed to carry out their evacuation, but even this plan depends upon some of the population having already moved themselves to safety before the call for evacuation happens.51 The fact that seventy-eight years have now elapsed since the last eruption suggests that the volcano is now building up to a major eruption, given that this period is too long to be typical of an interplinian period, but is more characteristic of the long dormancy last seen in the five hundred years before the major eruption of 1631.52 By the end of the eruption in ad 79, the landscape around Vesuvius had been transformed. Less than a decade later, the poet Martial reflected upon the disaster in one of his epigrams (4.44): Here is Vesuvius, just now covered with green shady vines; here the noble grape had squeezed out drenching pools; these the ridges, which Bacchus loved more than the hills of Nysa; on this mountain the satyrs recently performed their dances; this was the home of Venus, more pleasing to her than Lacedaemon; this place was famous for Hercules’ divine presence. Everything lies submerged in flames and sad ash; and the gods above would not wish they had such power.53 The towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum had disappeared from view and it is a common impression that they then remained forgotten and undisturbed until their Bourbon resurrection: The cities of Vesuvius were now wiped from the face of the Earth and buried to a depth beyond the reach of excavation by the Romans. The deposit over Herculaneum was up to 23 m. thick, and Pompeii lay under a blanket of 4 m. of pumice. Gradually the memory of the cities faded into oblivion, until their rediscovery in the eighteenth century.54 Such a view risks missing out an important episode in the history of Pompeii, when the town was slumbering before being officially reawakened, as the next chapter will reveal.

2 A Broken Sleep

Titus: Romans, listen: Vesuvius has erupted fiery rivers from its jaws, more terribly than usual; it has shaken the rocks; it has filled with ruins the fields all around and the neighbouring towns. The desolate people are fleeing; but suffering overwhelms those left by the fire. Let that gold serve as a means of putting right the havoc caused by such great afflictions. This, O Romans, is what it is to build a temple for me. MOZART, La Clemenza di Tito, libretto Act 1, no. 51 The responses made to Pompeii’s fate both in the immediate aftermath of the eruption and then throughout its period of repose until its official reawakening in 1748 determine key characteristics of the archaeological record. The idea that the town was sealed in a time capsule by the eruption has been influential upon the popular imagination, encouraged by comments such as this by Amedeo Maiuri, the site’s director from 1924 to 1961: ‘You will find the city just as it was abandoned by the fugitives. . . For this reason Pompeii is the best understood and the most beloved city of all the ancient world.’2 As Chapter One showed, the violence of the pyroclastic density currents during the eruption added to the damage that had been caused by repeated earth tremors during the last seventeen years or so of the town’s existence. As will emerge in more detail by the end of this chapter, the archaeological evidence has never been neatly lined up in place beneath the layers of volcanic debris, just waiting for us to uncover the remains of a town that had been calmly pursuing its everyday life.

Rome’s response to the catastrophe Today, a natural disaster on the scale of the eruption of Vesuvius prompts a global response, with governments and charities sending relief teams to help clear up the debris, supply fresh water and food, re-house the homeless and offer financial aid to rebuild local communities. Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito (cited above) was first performed in 1791, using the libretto written some decades earlier by the Neapolitan-born Metastasio. The librettist had 25

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no doubts about how the good emperor Titus would have reacted to the disaster, diverting funds voted by the Senate for a temple in his honour to the survivors of the eruption. Although this is a fictional reimagining, we do know something of an official coordinated response to the catastrophe. Two ancient writers – Cassius Dio and Suetonius – mention a scheme established by the emperor Titus in response to the eruption.3 In the words of his nearcontemporary biographer Suetonius, ‘He selected by lot some senators of consular rank to regenerate Campania and allocated the property of those who had died in the eruption and who had no surviving heirs to the renewal of the afflicted towns’. Typically, imperial intervention following a natural disaster took the form of allocating funding or practical help to survivors and their communities. In this instance, funding came from Titus’ private wealth as well as from reallocating the property of families wiped out in the eruption, which would otherwise have entered the state treasury. Presumably these were wealthy families of the district, who could have owned property elsewhere in Campania or even further afield. The epitomizer of the thirdcentury historian Dio implies that Titus himself initially went to Campania in order to help the stricken area but had to return to Rome following a devastating fire there. Inscriptions in Naples, Nola, Nuceria, Salerno and Sorrento commemorate the emperor’s financial support in restoring public monuments, including a temple at Nola and theatre at Nuceria in ad 81/82.4 It would be interesting to know why funding was secured for a sundial at Sorrento, which by contrast appears a rather unexpected, small-scale priority. We know, therefore, that the emperor sought to help survivors, but did his scheme involve digging down through the volcanic deposits in order to salvage valuable objects? It is far from uncommon for modern excavators to come across tunnels leading from house to house and large holes cut into the walls of houses.5 These holes have sometimes been interpreted as evidence for the return of survivors soon after the eruption, who dug down beneath the volcanic material in order to salvage what they could of their own property and that of others. A curious inscription suggests that some degree of co-ordination may have taken place. The Latin words for ‘tunnelled house’ (domus pertusa) in Greek letters were scratched upon the ‘House of N. Popidius Priscus’ (VII.ii.20), presumably left as a message that this house had already been explored.6 Even this, though, does not provide unequivocal evidence for a systematic approach by Titus’ commissioners to recovering property from the town. It may have been the result of unofficial coordination among individuals. We might even wonder whether tunnelling in the immediate aftermath of the eruption was motivated by the hope of recovering survivors as well as property. In the early nineteenth century, the director of the excavations, Carlo Bonucci, argued that salvagers had returned to the site, alluding to the ‘authority’ of an ancient inscription, which, he claimed, recorded that the third-century emperor Alexander Severus had plundered the site for marble, columns and statues.7 He did not directly quote from the inscription, but

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referred his readers to a more modern ‘authority’, Johann Joachim Winckelmann (even though the latter had discussed the inscription with reference to Herculaneum rather than Pompeii). In his famous open letter to M. le Comte de Brühl of 1762, Winckelmann had linked the clear signs of earlier tunnelling found by contemporary excavators at Herculaneum with an inscription found at Liternum (further north on the coast beyond Puteoli) recording the transferral of statues ‘from obscure locations’ to decorate baths of Severus. He deduced that statues from Herculaneum had been removed from the still buried town to decorate the Alexandrian Baths in Rome; a wonderfully romantic notion, but no more than that. Rather, the inscription is typical of a pattern in late antique urban regeneration in Italy and North Africa, when statues were moved around by local authorities keen to maintain the beauty of their towns.8 In fact, there is no single explanation for all of the tunnels, but at least some of the damage was caused by inhabitants of the town at the time of the eruption. Logical arguments around the identity of tunnellers based on whether or not the position of the tunnels suggests knowledge of the building’s layout on the part of the tunnellers perhaps depend too much upon calm calculation in the midst of the eruption. As Chapter One described, there was a lull in the eruption during the early hours of 25 August, when those who had taken refuge inside houses during the first phase of the eruption as pumice was falling decided to make their escape. By this point, many found that their way was now blocked by pumice, so that they had to try to escape by digging their way out. The ‘House of the Menander’ (I.x.4) provides a likely instance of this scenario. Next to a large hole in the rear wall of room 19, three skeletons were found along with a pickaxe and drag-hoe. Maiuri suggested that they were attempting to reach a group of people trapped with their lantern in a nearby corridor, but they had failed to penetrate right through the wall before the pyroclastic surge overwhelmed them. The presence of the bodies of women and children elsewhere in the town-block also supports the idea that these were victims of the eruption, rather than unlucky survivors who perished on their return.9 Although many of the tunnels in Pompeii may therefore represent the vain attempt to escape by victims of Vesuvius, other tunnels were created only sometime after the eruption. In the case of one tunnel, its structure indicates that it post-dated the eruption by some time since it used compacted ash as its vault.10 Furthermore, small but significant quantities of objects which must post-date 79 have been found on the site. Late antique lamps and pottery dating from the sixth to the sixteenth centuries were discovered in the ‘Suburban Baths’ just outside the ‘Marine Gate’, whilst two other late antique lamps were found in 1755–6 in the ‘Estate of Julia Felix’ (II.iv).11 The excavators of that time were unacquainted with the science of stratigraphy, even though they did meticulously document many aspects of their excavations (see Chapter 3), so we cannot be sure precisely when those lamps were lost. Nevertheless, another late lamp was found in 1974, in a

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room on the north side of the insula occidentalis, part of the ‘House of M. Fabius Rufus’ (VII.xvi.22), a large building constructed on several levels. The upper level of the building may therefore have remained exposed above, or have been only just below, the eruption layers.12 Such late antique material raises the spectre of people much later choosing to dig down through the destruction layers in search of reusable property, like the lead piping which was apparently removed at some point from the ‘Sarno Baths’ (VIII.ii.17), leaving behind only a deep gouge in the wall.13 Now that archaeologists are looking more closely at the layers above that of 79, they have detected signs of disturbance to the stratigraphy, although it is difficult to pinpoint the period, or periods, at which this occurred. For example, some parts of the complex around the tomb of the Lucretii Valentes at Scafati were found to have layers of ash, pumice and earth all mixed up, in contrast to other parts where they remained perfectly sealed by the eruption. This is a pattern which is found repeatedly in other digs within Pompeii.14 As we shall see later in relation to more modern times, the town did not remain undisturbed from 79 down until the eighteenth century. Areas like the open-air forum, which must have been relatively accessible to scavengers, were effectively stripped of reusable building materials over the ages. It is likely that the site was gradually denuded of valuable materials that could be reused, especially metal and marble, over many centuries. Recent excavations in Region V have also detected traces of tunnelling from modern clandestine digging during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as revealed by one layer of ash which can be identified as belonging to the eruption of Vesuvius in 1822 and another one that pre-dates this.15

Survivors of the eruption No attempt was made to rebuild Pompeii. Any tunnelling that occurred in the aftermath of the eruption was for salvaging property rather than for clearing the site and re-establishing the town. No attempt was made to rehouse survivors of the eruption in their original homes; instead, they relocated to other localities in the Bay of Naples. No survivors of the catastrophe have left us written accounts of how they coped with their changed circumstances. Presumably some emigrated to new regions, but others may have wanted to stay in the localities known to them. In general, ancient authors hardly mention individuals killed in the eruption. Other than Pliny the Elder, the only deaths recorded are of Agrippa (son of Antonius Felix, governor of Judaea in the 50s) and his wife, by the contemporary Jewish historian, Josephus.16 We therefore rely upon sources other than ancient literary texts for information about the eruption’s impact upon individuals. The later career of one individual survivor, who re-established his home at Naples, can be traced from an inscription in far-off Romania. A large

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altar still stands at Adamclissi, in the Roman province of Moesia Inferior, about 50 kilometres from the coast of the Black Sea. On it are inscribed the names of Romans killed in battle, the only example known from the Roman world of a casualty list in memory of fallen Roman soldiers. The commanding officer, whose name is not preserved, is given two hometowns – Naples and Pompeii. This reflects his relocation following the eruption, illustrating how he survived Vesuvius, going on to achieve high status in the Roman army, only to be killed in a remote part of the empire perhaps less than a decade later.17 Another survivor who moved away from Pompeii in the aftermath of the eruption is ostensibly recorded on a funerary inscription in northern Spain. This inscription is now lost but is recorded as belonging to a gravemarker with a military relief. This is the tombstone of Numerius Popidius Celsinus: ‘To the shades of Numerius Popidius Celsinus, town councillor, well-deserving. Quintus Cecilius his son set this up’.18 This combination of names – the first name Numerius, together with the family name Popidius – is of Pompeian origin. The whole name is identical to that of the six-yearold who rebuilt the Temple of Isis following earthquake damage and was in return made a member of the town council. The inscription at Pompeii has striking similarities with this epitaph: ‘Numerius Popidius Celsinus, son of Numerius, rebuilt at his own expense from its foundations the Temple of Isis, which had collapsed in an earthquake; because of his generosity, although he was only six years old, the town councillors nominated him into their number free of charge’. Nevertheless, this apparent piece of evidence is most likely a modern forgery. The fact that no photograph has ever been published of the stone, which is also now lost, raises questions, but above all suspicions are raised by the naming of his son as belonging to a different family (a Cecilius rather than a Popidius) and by the close echoing of what we know about Celsinus from Pompeii, that he had been nominated as a town-councillor. Finally, the text of the epitaph does not fit well with the military relief sculpted above it: other, similar reliefs from this area accompany texts that clearly belong to soldiers. Other than this, a poem of Statius (writing shortly after the eruption) congratulates a friend on the birth of his third child in terms that imply that Julius Menecrates had lost another family member in the eruption: ‘Behold, now a third child increases the family of illustrious Menecrates. A noble crowd of princes grows for you and consoles you for the losses caused by mad Vesuvius’.19 Given that Menecrates was the son-in-law of Pollius Felix, whose villa on the Sorrentine promontory is eulogized by Statius in another poem, and that he was, like Statius, from Naples himself, it is plausible that someone in his family may have died in the eruption.20 Such morsels of evidence hint at possible responses to the disaster by those living in the region. Careful detective work analysing onomastic patterns in the region suggests that surviving families relocated from Pompeii to other Campanian cities and perhaps also to the major harbour-town at Ostia.21 Seven Pompeian families appear to have resettled at Cumae, five at Naples, and four at

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Puteoli. Nine members of the family of the Umbricii Scauri, who had dominated fish-sauce production in Pompeii, for instance, are found in Puteoli, where their distinctive family name is found only in the late first and early second centuries ad .22 The name chosen for Aulus Umbricius Puteolanus may indicate that he was the first of the family to be born in their new hometown, reflecting their sense of belonging to a new community. The manufacture of fish-sauce also emerges at Puteoli at roughly the same time, either coincidentally or reflecting the relocation of the commercial expertise of the Umbricii Scauri.

Memories of Pompeii The eruption of Vesuvius was not forgotten in haste. In the years immediately following the disaster, poets commented upon the drastic change undergone by Campania. In ad 94, Statius wrote: These things I am singing to you, Marcellus, on the Cumaean shores, where Vesuvius revived its curbed anger, billowing forth fires to rival Etna’s flames. Amazing truth! Will future generations believe, when crops and these now deserted places once more thrive again, that cities and peoples are buried below and that ancestral lands have disappeared, having shared in the same fate? Not yet does the mountain top cease to threaten death.23 Elsewhere, in a eulogy to his deceased father, Statius describes how his father had intended to write an epic poem about the eruption.24 Statius’ own emotional response to the event was no doubt keener than that of other poets at Rome, given that his home town was Naples, and indeed several of the poems in his collection known as the Silvae celebrate locations in Campania. This is not to say, though, that other poets who lacked family connections with the area did not also draw inspiration from the event. For other so-called ‘Silver Latin’ writers, whose works typically abound in violent subject-matter and style, the volcano provided them with a vivid image. Valerius Flaccus created two striking similes comparing the eruption with moments during battles in his epic, the Argonautica, whereas Silius Italicus, in his epic poem on the struggles between Rome and Carthage in the Punic Wars, presented an eruption of Vesuvius as the culmination of a whole sequence of bad omens that had predicted disaster for the Romans on the battlefield at Cannae.25 No eruption actually occurred in 216 bc : rather, the recent disaster of ad 79 must have inspired this idea. Later writers, too, continued to allude to the eruption. In arguing against his pagan detractors in the third century, the early Christian writer Tertullian stated that the lack of Christians at Pompeii at the time of the eruption proved that Christians could not be held responsible for all natural and

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military calamities, and so should not be punished for them.26 Another Christian, Bishop Pacian of Barcelona (St Pacian), in the second half of the fourth century, exhorted his congregation to repent of their sins. Rejecting traditional pagan accounts of torment in the underworld for wrong-doers, like the feasting of the vulture upon the ever-regenerating liver of Tityus, he chose to represent the inexhaustible fires of Etna and Vesuvius as a fitting image of the hell-fires awaiting sinners who did not turn to penitence: Let no-one believe in the liver of Tityus, nor in the vulture of the poets. . . . Pay attention, if you do not believe it: when the soul will be in the fires deep down, it will be regenerated by a punishment that will also be its nourishment. . . . Calculate the force of the torment from what one can already see: certain fumaroles consume huge mountains with subterranean fires. Sicilian Etna and Campanian Vesuvius seethe with untiring balls of fire: and so that they may prove to us the perpetuity of the judgement, they burst apart and are swallowed up, but they will not for all that disappear in centuries to come.27 This emphasis upon the continuing fires emitted by Vesuvius implies that his inspiration for this image may have come from more recent eruptions of the volcano, as much as from that of 79. For the more philosophically minded, like emperor Marcus Aurelius, the fate of Pompeii and Herculaneum merely provided another reminder that everything ends in death.28 Some literary sources give the impression that life returned to normal quite soon after 79, but others emphasize the continued desolation of the area. In describing the emperor Tiberius’ retreat to the island of Capri in ad 27, Tacitus provides a rare glimpse of his own contemporary world in the early second century ad through the comment that ‘Capri looked out over a most beautiful bay, before Mount Vesuvius erupted and changed the appearance of the place’.29 Another second-century ad writer, Florus, describes Vesuvius both as ‘the most beautiful of all mountains’ and as ‘imitator of Etna’s fire’.30 This part of his historical epitome narrates events of the ‘Samnite War’ many decades before 79, and so he is both depicting the volcano as he imagines it to have been before it erupted and describing its character in his own day. Similarly, a poem of Statius, which tends to be cited as evidence of regeneration around Vesuvius at an early date, should also be read as a literary construct rather than as a reflection of reality.31 This poem belonged to the moment when Statius decided to leave Rome to return to Naples. So, by playing down the destruction inflicted by the volcano with the words ‘Vesuvius’ peak and the dread mountain’s fiery storm have not depleted the terrified cities of their citizens so much: they stand and their populations thrive’, he was not asserting that the buried cities had been revived, but that his wife should not worry too much about being able to find a suitable husband for her daughter outside Rome. Similarly, his assertion that Stabiae had been ‘reborn’ should be seen as part

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of his attempt to persuade his wife that the Bay of Naples would be just as pleasant a place of residence as Rome, with plenty to see and do, and he may perhaps be forgiven if he slightly exaggerated the situation. In addition, Statius’ optimistic representation of the region’s renewal is a mirror of the renewal in his poetry that accompanied his leaving Rome for Naples. Apparent contradictions in literary representations of the impact of the eruption upon the region, then, are by no means irreconcilable, but can largely be explained by their context and literary purposes.32

Regeneration in antiquity The region’s landscape, notably the coastline and the course of the River Sarno, was drastically altered by the eruption, requiring the territorial boundaries of the surviving towns in the region to be reassigned. Pompeii lay under 5–6 metres of volcanic deposits, the fertile agricultural district around it transformed into a dismal grey landscape. Nevertheless, recent studies of volcanic ecology all confirm the remarkable ability of the natural world to regenerate itself, even after the devastating impact of pyroclastic activities. Photographs of the region blasted by Mt St Helens taken in the immediate aftermath of that eruption present us with an almost lunar landscape, a grey world deprived of all vegetation and habitation. Having toured the site by helicopter four days after the eruption, US President Jimmy Carter remarked to reporters: ‘Somebody said it looked like a moonscape. But the moon looks like a golf course compared to what’s up there’.33 Over the last forty years, Mt St Helens has offered a unique opportunity for detailed study of the regeneration of the area. Only a couple of weeks after the eruption, ecologists visiting the area observed the green shoots of a plant known appropriately enough as ‘fireweed’ in the US returning to the region. More familiar in the UK as rosebay willowherb, this plant was characteristic of London during the blitz.34 The speed of ecological rehabilitation has varied according to the type of damage in any given area: after seven years, six out of thirty-two resident small mammal species had returned to the areas worst affected, fifteen to the areas where trees had been blasted away and twenty-two to areas which had suffered from falling tephra.35 Nevertheless, the area of the National Volcanic Monument around Mt St Helens, which has been allowed to follow its own course of recovery, now has a richer biodiversity than other parts of the Pacific Northwest which have been subject to measures for fire suppression and intensive forest management.36 It would be rash to draw direct comparisons between Mt St Helens and Vesuvius, because both eruptions had their own individual characteristics within dissimilar ecological zones, whilst differences in season and time of eruption can also affect environmental recovery. Nevertheless, the example of Mt St Helens can be used to set up the hypothesis that the region around Vesuvius may have recovered significantly

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by c. ad 120, forty years after the eruption. This may then be tested against archaeological evidence.37 Studies of the impact of modern natural disasters suggest that there can be a tendency to underestimate the resilience of communities to recover even from serious fatalities, but this does not mean that Pompeii itself recovered.38 There is little evidence for the resumption of activity directly within the walls of the buried town. At the turn of the twentieth century, controversy was generated by finds to the north of the town, just outside the ‘Vesuvian Gate’. In digging in this area, Antonio Sogliano believed that he had found the remains of a town built after 79. He uncovered some small masonry walls, which he believed to be foundations of buildings from the end of the first/early second centuries, which were later demolished and reused for burials by the mid-second/third centuries.39 The structures did point to some sort of activity in that area after 79, but Sogliano went too far in interpreting them as a new Pompeii. By contrast, there is good evidence for the building of a villa towards the end of the first century directly on top of the two metres of volcanic debris that covered over an earlier villa destroyed in 79 at Pollena Trocchia, to the north-west of the volcano. This was later buried again in the major eruption of 472, whose fallout once again reached the area of Pompeii. Similarly, a villa was built in the Hadrianic era on top of a previous one buried by Vesuvian deposits at Ponticelli (Naples), also to the north-west of the volcano.40 Later evidence generally falls beyond the boundaries of the Roman town, in modern Pompei and Scafati (Map. 2.1). A group of buildings in the area of via Lepanto provides the best evidence so far found for some resumption of life immediately around the buried town. This complex partly reuses

MAP 2.1 Sites around Pompeii with archaeological evidence dating from after the eruption in AD 79 [L. H. Davies].

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structures of a building buried by the eruption and reflects habitation rather than burial.41 Soundings carried out here in the late 1980s identified the substantial debris of building materials mixed in with pottery fragments. Some of the structures, including a basin with waterproof-concrete covering and lead piping, rest directly upon the ash layer of 79. Other evidence relates to later periods, namely the third and fourth centuries: walls belonging to housing and a workshop reuse the structures below them of a rustic villa destroyed in the eruption. Furthermore, a deposit of third/fourth-century ceramics may represent a domestic rubbish heap. Four different soundings in the area brought to light many fragments of different types of pottery, including fineware, amphoras and coarseware also dating from the third/ fourth centuries. From this, it seems likely that there was a small settlement in this area from at least the second century, but this was in turn destroyed in the eruption of 472. Generally, though, small-scale non-monumental burials are found. For example, just outside Pompeii to the south-east, in ‘podere De Fusco’, a necropolis has been uncovered, for which a fourth/ fifth-century date has been suggested.42 The burials that are attested in the area are distinctly impoverished in scale: gone are the elaborate tomb monuments, which the people of Pompeii had built for themselves in earlier times, replaced by simple burials inside amphoras or underneath tiles (known as ‘a cappucina’ burials). If we look at the area around Pompeii a little more widely, beyond the actual site of the town, we find signs of regeneration in the second century. The Hadrianic period saw the rebuilding of the major road in the region. This road may have undergone emergency clearance soon after the eruption, but it seems to have waited some years before being extensively reconstructed.43 The branch leading from Nocera to Stabiae was reestablished in 121, and perhaps also the one from Stabiae to Naples. Three milestones, one from Naples and the other two from the road between Nocera and Stabiae all display an inscription recording the road’s repair at this date.44 Although some action may have been taken soon after the eruption, a generation seems to have passed before normal transport could have resumed, when the essential infrastructure represented by the arterial road around the bay was fully repaired. Two fragments from necks of amphoras found in warehouses excavated in the south of France suggest the resumption of large-scale viticulture in the Vesuvian area. These fragments belong to wine amphoras from a large group of amphoras, type Dressel 2–4, found at Saint-Romain-en-Gal (near Lyons) in second/third-century deposits. They each preserve a painted inscription: Sur(rentinum vinum), and Glabr(io) e[t]/ Torq(uato) co(n)s(ulibu)s. The first inscription identifies the contents as ‘Sorrentine wine’, whilst the second is a dating formula, recording the names of Rome’s consuls for 124. Analysis of the clay in the pots shows that it contains minerals that can be traced to the region around Vesuvius. This scrap of evidence hints at the possibility that the Vesuvian area had already recovered sufficiently by 124 to be exporting

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wine to the south of France.45 It is also possible that wine production beyond the area affected by Vesuvius’ pyroclastic activity may not have been disrupted much at all, particularly perhaps in the area of the Sorrentine peninsula, which must have suffered only from earth tremors and tephra fallout. Overall, then, it seems likely that the area around Pompeii, and the Vesuvian region more widely, was beginning to recover by the 120s. This is ecologically plausible by comparison with Mt St Helens and seems to be indicated by the admittedly meagre archaeological evidence. Further eruptions (in 172, 203, 222, 303, 472, 505, 512, and 533) and earthquakes (notably in 346) must have hindered large-scale redevelopment in the region, which also suffered from invasions of Vandals and Visigoths and from the effects of plague during the fifth century.46 From a letter written between 507 and 511 on behalf of the Ostrogothic King Theodoric by his chief minister Cassiodorus, we learn that an assessment was to be made regarding the remission of taxes and the extent of damage to territory around Nola and Naples following an eruption: ‘The Campanians, devastated by the hostility of Mount Vesuvius, have shed abundant tears in begging for our mercy, asking that, given that they have been stripped of the fruits of their fields, they may be relieved from the burden of taxation’.47 The letter continues with a description of the impact of the eruption on the environment, and agrees to some form of tax relief, but ends with a concern about avoiding potentially fraudulent claims to exemption. In this way we are provided with a detailed snapshot of the continuing problems posed by Vesuvius for its neighbours.

Post-antique Pompeii Even though the buried cities remained alive in collective memory, at some point local knowledge of the precise location of Pompeii disappeared, since the first official excavators in 1748 believed for some time that it was ancient Stabiae that they were uncovering.48 This is despite the fact that the name ‘Pompeii’, along with the names of other buried towns – Stabiae, Oplontis and Herculaneum – appears correctly marked upon the Peutinger Table, a twelfth-century map. It is unlikely, though, that this reflects current geographical knowledge during the mediaeval period since this map was based upon a late antique map, which, in turn, was derived from earlier sources, some probably pre-dating the eruption.49 Topographical knowledge became rather patchy. A ‘Bird’s eye view of the Bay of Naples and surrounding country’ by Girolamo Mocetto of 1514 shows the locations of Herculaneum and Pompeii correctly, but places Stabiae mistakenly at Torre Annunziata.50 Pompeii is also marked on a map in a 1721 edition of Pliny’s Letters produced in Leipzig by Christophorus Cellarius.51 Earlier, at the start of the sixteenth century, a literary masterpiece illustrates how Pompeii had been part of a locally inspired picture of Arcadia.

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The Neapolitan poet Jacopo Sannazaro composed his classically inspired work, Arcadia, in two phases, with the complete version being published in 1504.52 In ‘Prosa 12’, the narrator has a dream from which he ‘wakes up’, goes for a walk, and is guided by a local nymph to various sights. During this tour, he relates how they come into view of Pompeii: But this town which we see in front of us is without doubt a city once famous in your country, called Pompeii, which was irrigated by the waters of the chilly Sarno. It was swallowed up by a sudden earthquake . . . and now with these words we were very close to the city, which she was talking about, of which we could see the towers and houses, the theatres and the temples as if they were intact. It would be fascinating to know whether or not this poetic vision was in any way based upon reality. Sannazaro was well acquainted with other physical remains of antiquity in the Naples area, having acted as official guide for visitors to the Phlegraean Fields, for example escorting the French ambassador around the ruins in December 1489.53 Another of his works, Rime Disperse V, was a sonnet inspired by the ruins of Cumae.54 Nor was this the only work in which Sannazaro drew upon local history. In the fourth Piscatory Eclogue, dedicated to King Ferdinand I (reg. 1458–94), the mythological figure of Proteus sings a history of the Bay of Naples, starting with the war of giants and gods, mentioning the foundation and destruction of Herculaneum and Pompeii, as well as recalling famous sites further north – Cumae, the Sibyl’s cave and Lake Avernus – finally ending with contemporary Naples.55 The poet’s aim was clearly to glorify the city of Naples through its history, implicitly privileging its ancient glories above the history of Spain, which controlled the Neapolitan kingdom at that time. Sannazaro, if anyone, would have been interested if any parts of Pompeii were emerging from the countryside at that time, but we can only speculate whether or not this really was the case. A new episode in the history of the slumbering town came about with the construction of an aqueduct between the River Sarno and Torre Annunziata at the very end of the sixteenth century.56 It was built by Domenico Fontana to provide water to gunpowder factories. For most of its route, it proceeded above ground, but some parts of it went underground, including a section lasting about 1,600 metres, beneath the hill known as Civita. This part of the aqueduct cut through the centre of the still buried town, disturbing areas including the forum, ‘Triangular Forum’, and ‘Stabian Street’. Remains of the channel can be seen today in the south of the town, just before arriving at the ‘Nucerian Gate’ Engineers discovered that they were digging through structures, discovering coins and inscriptions along their way. Two inscriptions found at that time included a dedication to Jupiter and a building-inscription set up by a local benefactor.57 The discoveries made during the digging of the canal led the antiquarian Lucas Holstenius (Lukas

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Holste) to propose in 1637 the correct location for Pompeii, declaring ‘it is absolutely certain that Pompeii was in the location which is called Civita’, but others still did not agree.58 Even once the aqueduct had penetrated the site, Pompeii was still not officially excavated for about another 150 years. That does not mean that it remained undisturbed. The discovery of an inscription with the letters POMPEI found in ‘excavations’ during 1689 was interpreted by some as referring to a villa of Pompey the Great, even though Giuseppe Macrini argued that Civita was the town of Pompeii.59 Another scholar, Camillo Pellegrino, also identified Civita as Pompeii, but again his idea was dismissed because the ancient town was believed to be buried under Torre Annunziata. In any case, by the mid-eighteenth century, unofficial excavations were proceeding apace at Civita. In a letter dated 10 February 1748, a month before the engineer Alcubierre started digging officially at the site, the antiquarian Giacomo Martorelli described to his fellow-enthusiast Antonio Francesco Gori the discovery of wonderful pictures, columns, and mosaics.60 It is likely that it was the very ease with which objects were turning up at Civita that prompted in the first place the diversion of energy and resources from Herculaneum, where, by contrast, conditions for excavation were much more difficult and hazardous. Long before the mid-eighteenth century, then, people were well aware that there were ruined structures lying under Civita. Winckelmann observed in 1762 that the remains of Pompeii’s Amphitheatre had always been visible above ground.61 Even more valuable information comes in an early description of a visit to the ruins of Pompeii by French naturalist François de Paule Latapie (1739–1823) in 1776. He pointed out that, although official excavations had begun only recently, the locals must have long been discovering parts of the town when digging ditches to plant their vines. As he walked between the two main parts of the site excavated at that time – the Theatre and the ‘Street of Tombs’ outside the ‘Herculaneum Gate’ – he described the countryside above the, as yet, unexcavated remains: In order to go to this other extremity of the town, which is towards the west, one crosses a land planted with vines supported by poplars, with lupins growing in between, which provide fodder for cattle here. This ground covers all the buildings of Pompeii as far as their top, but sufficiently lightly that one does not have to dig very far to uncover them. One even sees in some places ruins a foot above the surface of the ground. He further suggested that cultivation and the reuse of materials for building houses and walls by locals had played some part in damaging the structures below.62 By the time of his account, though, the period of the town’s disturbed slumbers had drawn to an end, and its official reawakening had now begun.

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3 The Re-awakening

We have degenerated so much from our ancients that we are like peasants who have built huts next to the magnificent palaces of the ancient Italian heroes . . . In ancient and modern Italy they value only Rome, and with this in mind they speak of Italy, they call Italy great with ancient Rome, but small, poor, frivolous, idle, ignorant with Rome of today. But ancient Rome was an accidental flash of valour and fortune in Italy which, as a way to characterize Italy, means nothing more than what Italy can become with a well-proportioned system of virtues and vices. . . . Italy was more miserable in Roman times than it is now. BERNARDO TANUCCI, 2 April 17651

Creating a European capital The site of Pompeii – though not its identity – had long been known to locals, but the year 1748 marked the official reawakening of the site. This was not the result of some new knowledge about what lay beneath the ground’s surface, but of the political circumstances of that time. In 1734, Charles of Bourbon (1716–88, fifth son of Philip V of Spain and eldest son of his mother Elisabeth Farnese) won a decisive battle against the Austrians. Consequently, he acceded as Charles VII to the throne of the Kingdom of Naples and the Two Sicilies, displacing rule by a viceroy of the Austrian Habsburg emperor. For the first time in two hundred years, Naples became the capital of an autonomous kingdom, having previously been under the rule of Spanish and then briefly Austrian viceroys. Naples now hosted a resident monarch with all the trappings of court life. The new kingdom did not immediately gain universal acceptance. Although France recognized it in May 1734, it sent no ambassador, whilst the Papal States refused to acknowledge Charles’ rule for several years and it was not until 1741 that Savoyard Piedmont sent an ambassador. Even then, the kingdom was still regarded as in the state of feudal dependency on the papacy that had existed since the thirteenth century, continuing to send annual tribute to Rome until 1788.2 39

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Charles strove to establish his new kingdom as one worthy of international recognition. The development of an impressive array of cultural institutions was no small part of this. A flourishing court culture could help to legitimate a new kingdom: the dominance of Naples by short-term foreign viceroys had left this aspect of political life relatively undeveloped, although not entirely neglected. In the seventeenth century, the viceroy Don Alfonso Pimental had carried out excavations in the Phlegraean Fields, the volcanic area to the north of Naples, which yielded some statues to decorate the Palazzo degli Studi.3 Naples had also already become recognized as an international centre for opera, with four conservatories and the appointment of Alessandro Scarlatti as ‘maestro di capella’ from 1684 to 1702.4 Right from the start of his reign, Charles appears to have been inspired by his great-grandfather, Louis XIV of France (1638–1715), the ‘Sun King’, who had dazzled Europe by his promotion of the arts, including his construction of the palace at Versailles.5 Louis XIV had established the importance of opera through his patronage of Jean-Baptiste Lully and inauguration of the Académie d’Opéra. Charles embraced this ideal: his new opera house, the Teatro San Carlo, was speedily constructed in Naples in 1737. The opera house was as much a place for the display of royal magnificence as for the performance of opera, with the royal box linked directly to the palace via a gallery. Performances of ‘opera seria’ marked royal occasions, whilst the season began on Charles’ name day, 4 November.6 The glittering image of Versailles, together with his obsession with hunting, prompted Charles to commission the construction of new palaces-cumhunting-lodges at Portici and Capodimonte in 1738 and at Caserta in 1751. Portici was on the doorstep of the excavations at Herculaneum, which Charles resumed from 1738, and initially housed antiquities extracted from the site. On a highpoint overlooking Naples, Capodimonte contained antiquities and pictures from the Farnese collection, which Charles inherited from his mother. Caserta, a country residence sixteen miles to the north-east of the capital, was by far the most ambitious project and was not completed until over twenty years later.7 The new confidence of Naples was reflected in the commissioning by Giovanni Carafa, Duke of Noja, of an ambitious map of the city in 1750, which was completed in 1775, printed on thirty-five sheets.8 Despite Charles’ best endeavours during these early years, Naples remained an inferior cultural capital when compared with other Italian cities. Rome was the main centre of classical artistic treasures, with Florence following close behind. Charles considered having copies made of portrait busts in the Capitoline Museum at Rome and was interested in buying collections rumoured to be unofficially for sale.9 As it happened, however, Charles inherited through his mother one of the major Renaissance collections of antiquities, that of the Farnese family, which was split between Rome and Parma.10 It was this latter part of the collection that was transferred to Naples right at the start of Charles’ reign, to be displayed in

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Capodimonte palace. Such a transferral was not unusual for the times, given that collections of paintings and sculptures were comparatively mobile within noble circles, being sold off or offered as part of marriage settlements, but it demonstrates that Charles was already aware of the potential value of antiquities for enhancing his prestige.11 In this way, Charles endeavoured to transform Naples, which was the third most populous city in Europe, into a great cultural capital. Given that already by 1739–40 one well-travelled observer, Charles de Brosses, commented that Naples was the only town in Italy to have the character of a capital, it seems that Charles’ efforts began to pay off.12 By 1754, his efforts were recognized in comments of the Neapolitan economist Antonio Genovesi, writing to his friend Giuseppe de Sanctis: ‘we, too, are beginning to have a fatherland and to understand what a great advantage it is for a nation to have its own prince’.13 When his half-brother Ferdinand VI of Spain died in 1759, Charles relinquished the throne of Naples to become Charles III of Spain. His third son, only eight years old, acceded as Ferdinand IV, so a regency was set up, dominated by Marchese Bernardo Tanucci, a close ally of Charles, who had come with him from northern Italy when Charles had assumed the Neapolitan throne. He kept up weekly correspondence with Charles in Spain about the kingdom’s affairs, describing the progress of digging at Pompeii alongside comments on domestic and foreign affairs, the king’s health and hunting.14 These letters give invaluable insights into the regime’s attitude towards Pompeii, revealing Charles’ continuing interest in the excavations. Writing to Francesco Nefetti, who looked after his business affairs in Tuscany, Tanucci comments: ‘My only entertainment is the study of antiquity.’ Classical allusions are common in the letters that he writes to friends with a similar outlook (in contrast to his later diplomatic letters) and he shows extensive knowledge in one letter, interpreting a recently found mosaic signed by Dioscourides.15 By contrast, even as he grew up, it was clear that Ferdinand was no intellectual, being primarily interested in hunting, described in the 1820s by Lady Blessington as ‘uneducated’ and ‘passionately attached to the chase’.16 He showed little sign of excitement at the excavations on his doorstep. His father, however, did nothing to change the situation, which suited his political aims. Charles was content for Ferdinand to remain childish in his outlook, since this would allow him to influence affairs of the kingdom despite the official separation of Naples from Spain. His close oversight of his former realm emerges from weekly letters from Tanucci and the hundreds of letters exchanged with Domenico Cattaneo, prince of San Nicandro, who was dean of the regency council and grand chamberlain.17 It took a visit from the Hapsburg Emperor Joseph II in 1769 to urge Ferdinand, his brother-in-law, who had just come of age, to recognize the potential prestige to be gained from promoting the exploration of antiquity. When visiting Pompeii with Ferdinand and witnessing an impressive haul of objects dug out before their eyes, he took the opportunity

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of encouraging the king to take more interest in the dig, using language that would strike a chord with the young monarch, congratulating him on a ‘good hunt’. Consequently, according to the report of the director of excavations Francesco La Vega, Ferdinand ‘showed immense pleasure in this encounter’, was reluctant to leave and two or three times asked La Vega to let him know whenever new discoveries were being made so that he could be present in person.18 The excavation of Pompeii, therefore, was part of the Bourbon mission to transform Naples into a cultural showcase. The aim was not primarily to gain knowledge about the past, but to gain prestige for the present. This influenced the progress of the excavations throughout the rest of the eighteenth century. The letter written by Tanucci on 2 April 1765 to the Neapolitan envoy in London, Domenico Caracciolo (cited at the beginning of this chapter), shows his sensitivities about Naples’ cultural inferiority via his reactions on reading the poem The Traveller by Oliver Goldsmith, published on 19 December 1764. His objections both to its negative characterization of Italians and its focus upon Rome as inheritor of antiquity illustrate that nothing less was at stake than Naples’ reputation in the world.

A royal treasure hunt? The king’s aim in excavating Pompeii was to promote his regime by recovering artistic treasures for the royal collection. These were first displayed in the Royal Palace at Portici, but pressure on space led to the creation of a separate Herculanense Museum in the adjacent Caramanico Palace. This expanded from five rooms in 1758 to eighteen by 1796.19 Decorating the floors and walls with ancient mosaics and paintings demonstrated royal ownership of the finds. A royal proclamation in 1755 protected Naples’ cultural heritage with more severe restrictions than elsewhere in Italy. Whereas the Pope claimed just one-third of all antiquities excavated in his domains and was willing to grant export licences for other finds, in Naples all antiquities discovered in the kingdom belonged to the king. Export of finds overseas was not forbidden entirely, but permitted only after specialists appointed by the king had determined whether or not something should be retained in Naples on grounds of its artistic excellence or unusual character and only exported by licence of the king.20 The regime was determined to control how its antiquities could be viewed. At Pompeii, where the open-air digging was potentially visible to all, areas were initially covered over again once they had been explored. This was the fate of the ‘Estate of Julia Felix’ (II.iv) and of the Amphitheatre, which had to be reexcavated many years later. Even though the king’s aim was clear, the excavators disagreed about how to proceed.21 The methods employed in digging and documenting finds were a compromise. Tanucci’s correspondence reveals tensions over many months

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between the engineers Joachim Alcubierre and Karl Weber and the Director of the Museum, Camillo Paderni, who was a sculptor and artist.22 They disagreed about who should decide where to excavate and how the excavation should be conducted.23 Some of the tensions arose from professional disagreement. For instance, all three held different views on the uncovering of a portico at Pompeii in April 1762.24 Other tensions were more personal, as Paderni suspected that Alcubierre wanted to replace Weber with his brother.25 When Paderni struck an unproductive seam in his digging, Alcubierre could not contain his glee, considering that this vindicated his methods.26 Paderni’s treatment of paintings was contentious. Having decided which paintings to cut out and transport to Portici, he was accused of destroying other paintings deemed ‘worthless’. Some complaints about Paderni’s practice owed as much to personal animosity as professional criticism. Winckelmann’s condemnation was motivated perhaps by resentment of the fact that Paderni, not himself, was Director at the Museum and that his application for membership of the Royal Herculaneum Academy had been turned down.27 Alcubierre also informed on Paderni out of personal animosity: Tanucci suggests that Paderni’s destruction of a painting may have been because it had been found by Alcubierre.28 On being rebuked by Tanucci in November 1763 for destroying paintings, Paderni claimed that he was acting on instructions from the king, justifying his practice of destroying paintings which duplicated motifs since this prevented them from being stolen and sold illegally.29 A further denunciation was made by the master of works Antonio Scognamiglio in January 1764.30 He describes how Paderni had acted rashly, rejecting paintings one week, only to change his mind the next, ordering two of the eight rejects to be rescued. It is unclear, therefore, whether the criticism is of destroying the paintings, or rather of errors of judgement being made in Paderni’s choice of what to preserve and what to destroy.31 Weber came into conflict with the other excavators over his attempts to excavate systematically. Although the ‘Estate of Julia Felix’ (II.iv), which he excavated between 1755 and 1757, was reburied at the end of its excavation, Weber’s careful documentation demonstrates that he should not be regarded as a simple treasure-hunter. He produced a detailed plan of the complex, numbered and linked to a key indicating what objects were found in each location and an axonometric reconstruction.32 Weber’s method of excavating was to focus on a single site and then clear it entirely in order to show its architectural context. Paderni criticized this method as being unreliable, suggesting that it was mere chance whether or not something was found in this way.33 Weber’s method contrasted with the approach of the Royal Herculaneum Academy, which presented artefacts as individual treasures deprived of their context.34 Later excavators also commented upon their desire to go beyond the remit of royal instructions to produce finds for the museum. On 19 November 1789 Francesco La Vega commented in his excavation diary that he was hopeful that he would now be permitted to

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continue excavating the theatre, given that the royal museum was now fully stocked with artefacts, having previously been advised not to continue clearing the theatre on the grounds that it was unlikely to produce artefacts.35 Contemporary observers found fault with the excavations: Sir William Hamilton, the British ambassador to Naples from 1764 to 1800, who closely observed both excavations and eruptions, wrote in a letter to Lord Palmerston on 19 August 1766 that he had suggested to Tanucci that the excavations should be carried out in a more systematic way. He deplored the current practice: ‘Could one think it possible that, after the principal gate into Pompeii has been discovered at least five years, that instead of entering there and going on clearing the streets they have been dipping here and there in search of antiquities and by that means destroyed many curious monuments and clogged up others with the rubbish.’36 A common criticism, that the pace of excavation was too slow and that the whole town should be uncovered within only a few years, now seems rather naive. In 1776, Latapie criticized not just the practice of digging at random points in the site, but also protested against the slow speed of excavation, commenting that only about one tenth of the funds designated for use by the king for the dig was actually being used, that only about thirty men were actively engaged on site, and finally that the directors were negligent, ignorant and stupid.37 Nowadays, we are only too grateful that the Bourbons did not dig up the entire site. Other criticisms of how the Bourbons approached the task of excavating Pompeii arose later among supporters of the Napoleonic regime that replaced them. In 1813, the French excavator Frédéric de Clarac criticized the ‘bad system’ of excavating whereby areas of the site were covered over again if they did not seem likely to produce striking finds.38 Once impressive finds started to emerge, great care was taken to ensure that the Bourbon court alone derived prestige from them. This attitude reflects the centralizing tendencies of the regime more generally. The king had, for instance, taken over at celebrations of the Carnival, representing himself as the sole sponsor of the event that distributed expensive food to the population.39 Even a substantial monument like the seat-tomb of Mamia (Figure 3.1) was removed for display at Portici in the museum’s courtyard within weeks of being excavated in June 1763, returning to its original location only in 1785.40 Royal visits to Pompeii had an impact upon how Pompeii was excavated. The practice of orchestrating the spectacle of excavation especially for the king and his companions is first heard of in 1769, when Emperor Joseph II witnessed the clearance of a house named in his honour – the ‘House of Joseph II’ (VIII.ii.39) – which had been prepared for the visit by being cleared almost down to the level of its floors, where artefacts were most likely to be found. The royal visitors inspected the progress of digging in various parts of the site, with Joseph II continuously questioning the way in which the excavations were proceeding, putting pressure on the King to increase the workforce.41 Such staged excavations became more common

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FIGURE 3.1 Seat-tomb of Mamia. Photograph: A. E. Cooley. By permission of the Ministry of Culture – Archaeological Park of Pompeii; further reproduction or duplication by any means is forbidden.

during the early nineteenth century, as a means of demonstrating control over the site first by its Napoleonic rulers and then by the restored Bourbon monarchy. Visitors were presented with the objects found before their eyes, whilst King Ludwig I of Bavaria even wielded a pickaxe himself.42 The task of publishing the finds was entrusted exclusively to the Royal Herculaneum Academy, founded by Tanucci in 1755.43 This institution produced nine volumes of Le antichità di Ercolano esposte (The Antiquities of Herculaneum Displayed) between 1757 and 1796, which included finds from Pompeii and Stabiae alongside those of Herculaneum. Dedicated to the king, these lavish volumes presented finds by category, focusing initially upon paintings, together with commentaries on each object. No expense was spared, with the first volume costing 16,000 ducats to print.44 To put this into perspective, the annual salary of the Director of the Royal Porcelain Factory, Domenico Venuti, was an exceptional 100 ducats from 1782.45 Their engravings were of high quality and included the original painted framework, where possible, as well as measurement scales.46 One of the repeated complaints in Tanucci’s letters is the slow progress in publishing these volumes, it being a challenge to employ enough engravers to work more quickly. Tanucci reports in August 1762 that only twenty or twentyfour plates could be engraved each year with current resources, out of the

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sixty needed to complete a volume.47 Tanucci was ambitious for the volumes to be as impressive as possible, even raising the question of whether they could be printed in colour, but being dissuaded on the grounds of expense by the economist and member of the Academy, Ferdinando Galiani (1728– 87).48 Another approach to publishing can be seen in a manuscript by Paderni, where the finds of the excavations are presented in their context rather than as individual treasures: Plate 1 of Paderni’s manuscript depicts a wall painting from VI.xvii.41 at Pompeii (although described in error as being from Stabiae) within its context, along with a scaled plan of the room and the mosaics and bronze vessel found alongside it.49 This shows an awareness of alternative publishing strategies, which focused on the overall historical significance rather than upon individual objects. The Academy retained its own methodology, but eventually it too began to show interest in the wider context of the finds, publishing in Volume Six the façade of a shop (VI.xvvi.3–4) (Figure 3.2).50 These lavish tomes were distributed as gifts as a form of what we would now term ‘diplomatic soft power’. Several of Tanucci’s letters are concerned with sending copies to members of European royal families and nobility and he repeats the mantra that the king does not want them to be for sale. In 1765, he sets out the principle that ‘the Herculaneum volumes ought to be given like the Cross of Malta, or other similar honours, in other words only to those who are evidently of noble birth, or to public libraries, or to friars and monks besides sovereigns’.51 Recipients of the first two volumes of Le antichità named in Tanucci’s letters include the Spanish ambassador to Venice, the Neapolitan ambassadors to Dresden and Constantinople, the Neapolitan envoy to London together with copies for King George II and his sons, the King of Poland and royal family, King of Prussia, King and Queen of Sweden, Swedish Minister of State; Spanish Ambassador in Stockholm and, of course, the King and Queen of Spain.52 A distinction was even made between different types of binding for recipients of different rank. Tanucci dealt with requests for the volumes. In October 1761, he responded to a request from Gaetano Antinori, a member of the Consiglio di Reggenza in Toscana: ‘For Mr Antinori who desires the second Herculaneum volume, I repeat that the volume is the king’s, and that he bestows it at his pleasure; however, he gives it to all persons of distinction who ask His Majesty for it by means of a request directed through the usual channels of the secretariat of my office.’53 Tanucci also dealt with the problem of the second volume not reaching the right kind of people in Venice. He complained that the ambassador in Venice had distributed the second volume to humble individuals suggested to him by his kinsman, Abbot Cataneo. Tanucci caustically commented that individuals should address their requests for copies to the king, not Abbot Cataneo.54 These exclusive volumes were not the only royal gifts: lavishly illustrated volumes depicting the new palace at Caserta (Dichiarazione dei disegni del Real Palazzo di Caserta, 1756) were also commissioned and distributed to select parties.55 Careful control over

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FIGURE 3.2 Façade of a Pompeian shop (VI.xvvi.3–4), from Le antichità di Ercolano esposte, Vol.6: 393, plate 97 (Naples: Regia Stamperia, 1771) https://digi. ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/ercolano1771bd6/0409/image,info.

the distribution of the volumes meant that they could represent valuable transactions on the international stage, reaching individuals who might not come themselves to Naples. Before we condemn such practices out of hand, it is worth observing that a copy of Fotografi a Pompei nell’800 dalle collezioni del Museo Alinari in the library of the British School at Rome, published in 1990 by the Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei, has the following note inside its flyleaf: ‘Special edition not for sale, reserved for the Archaeological Superintendency of Pompeii’. The political importance of the Herculaneum volumes is implied by the way in which letters about the distribution of Le antichità are sandwiched amongst other letters addressing foreign affairs. Tanucci also comments upon the gift of the books on Caserta and Herculaneum to the French diplomat, the Count de Vergennes, envoy to the Ottoman Empire, at a time during the Seven Years’ War (1756–63) when Naples and Spain were informally aligning themselves with France, before engaging in hostilities themselves.56 It is not the case, though, that the volumes did not reach scholarly communities who valued their academic interest: eight copies were sent to Dresden for distribution to scholars of Saxony and Prussia at the discretion of the Duke of Santa Elisabetta, whilst Volume Two was given to the library of S. Marco in Venice and the libraries of S. Giustino and the University in Padua.57 Finally, in 1770 the volumes were made available for sale at the cost of 16,000 ducats apiece.58 Despite royal attempts to retain control over the distribution of Le antichità, the lack of copyright laws

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could not prevent the production of pirated copies in different languages, with reproductions being printed by Thomas Martyn and John Lettice in English (1773), Georg Christoph Kilian in German (1777–95) and Sylvain Maréchal, then François-Anne David in French (1780, 1780–89).59 Galiani had earlier argued that the production of a Guide for Foreigners to the museum and excavations might have gone some way to pre-empting the production of unauthorized publications, without undermining the need for the authoritative volumes of Le Antichità, but Tanucci had rejected this suggestion.60 The list of subscribers to the 1773 English version shows the wider range of individuals eager to acquire a copy of the volume than could have either received one ‘as a mark of royal favour or at an enormous expense’, in the words of the translators’ preface. Alongside members of the nobility, we find clergymen, scholars, gentlemen, lawyers, members of parliament, and ten college libraries in Cambridge.61 News of the sites gradually filtered through Europe, attracting visitors to Naples. At first, Pompeii was almost dismissed by some as far inferior to Herculaneum. De la Roque, former captain in the French army and selfstyled ‘amateur des arts’, reported that the lack of valuable antiquities being uncovered there was thought hardly to compensate for the expense of the excavations: ‘Pompeii, much less considerable, much less rich than Herculaneum was, up until today also only offers few antiquities of a certain merit; hardly (people said to us) offsetting the expenses caused by this research.’62 Nor was this disappointment limited to visitors. In a letter to the king on 9 December 1760, Tanucci recounted Alcubierre’s impatience at Pompeii: ‘At Civita, there are trifles – nails and glass – some pieces of glass, bone, and terracotta. Don Rocco is impatient at the barrenness of this excavation.’63 Pompeii did not produce statues to rival canonized classics like the Apollo Belvedere. Nor did it live up to current ideas of Roman antiquity, which had been conceived from ancient literature and the grand architectural monuments at Rome. Roman civilization had not been imagined as existing on an everyday level.64 In his description of his visit to the site on 11 March 1787, Goethe expressed surprise at the small dimensions of the town’s buildings: ‘Pompeii amazes one by its narrowness and littleness; confined streets, but perfectly straight and furnished on both sides by a foot pavement; little houses without windows, the rooms being lit only by the doors, which opened on the atrium and galleries. Even the public edifices, the tomb at the gate, a temple, and also a villa in its neighbourhood, are like models and dolls’ houses rather than real buildings.65 On the other hand, in common with other eighteenth-century visitors, de la Roque was impressed by the discovery of window glass in a villa just outside Pompeii, given that it was not all that common in contemporary domestic architecture. In time, it was exactly this difference between Pompeii and

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Rome – the way in which mundane artefacts and aspects of everyday life were revealed – that captured visitors’ imaginations. These are often the features of the site which today’s tourists remember most vividly, but back in the mid-eighteenth century, Pompeii initially failed to live up to expectations. Some compensation came from the discovery of so many paintings, since Roman wall paintings had previously been known only from a very few examples, such as the ‘Aldobrandini Wedding’, which was the first ancient painting to be removed from its original findspot on its discovery in 1601 to be displayed in the gardens of the Villa Aldobrandini in Rome.66 Nevertheless, the much easier conditions for digging persuaded the excavators to continue there, even though Pompeii was much less impressive than Herculaneum. The rhythm of excavation at Pompeii was far from even. In 1748–49, the Amphitheatre, the Street of the Tombs outside the ‘Herculaneum Gate’, and some houses were investigated, but interest waned during 1751–54, when the ‘Villa of Papyri’ at Herculaneum was given top priority. Even after more interest in Pompeii was shown from the 1760s, as Tanucci and La Vega planned to uncover the theatre district, the devastating famine which afflicted the kingdom in 1764, killing 40,000, cut off funds from the excavations for a while. Indeed, Abbé Coyer remarked at the time that the authorities should be praised rather than criticized for the slow pace of excavation, given the severe hardships being suffered by the populace.67

Visiting Pompeii From 1755, the site became accessible to visitors approved by the royal court. Those in charge of the site were worried about the damage they might cause. Annibale Paderni (son of the Director of the Museum) reported on 8 June 1765 that he was concerned about the excessive number of visitors coming to the site, who could not be controlled.68 Initially, visitors could only admire the ‘Street of Tombs’ outside the ‘Herculaneum Gate’, followed by the Gladiatorial Barracks and Theatre District. Great excitement arose with the discovery of the Temple of Isis in 1764, which became the first monument to be properly cleared. In response to worries about how to protect it from animals and people, a ditch was dug around the temple, and a barred gate installed to control access.69 Its unusual finds attracted attention, including the remains of a meal and bodies identified as being those of the priests. Its rarity as an ‘Egyptian’ temple in Italy also prompted curiosity.70 On 6 April 1769, Emperor Joseph II, King Ferdinand and Queen Maria Carolina, with Austrian ambassador Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz, Sir William Hamilton and his collaborator D’Hancarville visited the temple under the guidance of the Director of Excavations Francesco La Vega.71 The temple featured in a watercolour illustration in the Campi Phlegraei (1776) of Sir William Hamilton, who also gave a description of the temple in a letter read out to The Society of Antiquaries of London in 1775 (Figure 3.3).

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FIGURE 3.3 Watercolour by Pietro Fabris of the Temple of Isis, from Sir William Hamilton’s Campi Phlegraei (1776) plate 41. Courtesy of Sackler Library, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.

He reported that many of the paintings, a hieroglyphic tablet and the monumental inscription over the entranceway to the precinct had been removed to Portici: ‘It is pity that such monuments of antiquity as are not in immediate danger from suffering from the injuries of the weather, should have been removed from their places, where they would have afforded satisfaction and instruction to the curious who visit these antiquities.’72 Some attempt was made to enhance visitors’ experience by leaving stuccos and some artefacts in place, but, even so, visitors were initially rather disappointed at the temple’s lack of splendour. In 1769, the astronomer Joseph Lalande (1732–1807) noted that the temple was rather unimpressive, since it had brick columns faced with stucco instead of marble facing. He described it as ‘a small temple, totally intact except for its roof, but which gives only the slightest idea of this town. The columns are of brick covered with stucco; there are some very mediocre sculptures. The walls were covered with frescoes which have been detached for taking to the king’s museum. The staircase that leads to the sanctuary is narrow, clad with white marble with greenish veins, and which is less fine than Carrara marble’. These comments appeared in his work Voyage d’un françois en Italie fait dans les années 1765 et 1766, which was more impersonal and academic in tone than other travel accounts and was intended to serve as a pocket-sized on-the-spot travel-guide for visitors to Italy, albeit in eight individual volumes.73 By the 1786 edition of his work, though, Lalande was more enthusiastic about the temple, ‘the most curious part of these antiquities’, revising his negative view of its architecture: ‘the style of this architecture is

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pleasing rather than severe’. He now commented much more on the possibilities for reconstructing the activities in the temple from the utensils, paintings and bodies found there.74 This change of heart reflected a growing enthusiasm for the temple among visitors. An illustration showing a fantastical reconstruction of religious rites in the temple published in Voyage pittoresque by the Abbé Jean Claude Richard de Saint-Non reflected the fascination evoked by the temple and its cult (Figure 3.4), which also gripped the young Mozart, who visited it in 1770 within a few years of its discovery, and went on to take inspiration from it for the exotic setting of his opera The Magic Flute (1791).75 Visitors were banned from taking notes, making drawings or jotting down measurements, even if they had impeccable credentials. In 1756, the Abbé Barthélemy commented that ‘one is only allowed to look, and one returns to Naples, with empty notebooks and a full memory’.76 Similar restrictions are recorded on 30 May 1789, when the Danish archaeologist Georg Zoëga (1755–1809) wrote a letter to the German antiquarian Friedrich Münter, commenting upon the prohibition on taking notes at Portici and Pompeii. He remarked that he hoped to be able to make a plan of the Temple of Isis, notwithstanding obstruction from the site’s custodians, who intervened even though he was accompanied on his visit by Pasquale Baffi, a member of the Royal Herculaneum Academy.77 Such restrictions offended sensibilities of the Enlightenment, but the excessive control exerted

FIGURE 3.4 Temple of Isis, etching by Edouard Gautier-Dagoty after Louis Jean Desprez, from Saint-Non, Voyage pittoresque, ou description du royaume de Naples et de Sicile (1782) tav.75 bis, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/ search/390202 (Metropolitan Museum of Art).

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by the king over the finds reflects the problems of early finds being stolen and illegally exported.78 The prohibition did not prevent Sir William Hamilton from sending a detailed description of the temple to London, but he was well known for taking advantage of his privileged status, even though Tanucci tried to restrain his worst infringements, imprisoning an individual who was illegally digging on behalf of Hamilton at Formicola.79 Although there is no doubt that there was sensitivity over unauthorized note-taking, the theme of overcoming difficulties on site became a feature in travel accounts, in keeping with the hyperbolic and emotional tone typical of such literature, in which narrators often used self-deprecating humour as a means of engaging their readers.80 Lady Anna Miller gives a lively account of her own ingenuity in evading the custodian at the Temple of Isis in order to make some sketches during her visit: I amused our guide, by walking towards some paintings that appeared at a little distance, while M— took down this inscription in the temple, which follows [she then transcribes the text]. Whilst he was copying this inscription, I came to the paintings in view . . . [a description of the paintings follows]. I took a pencil out of my pocket, and began to make a rude sketch from this stag, and intended, if possible, to do the like from the perspective view; but my guide, in the most pressing manner imaginable, begged me to desist: he assured me he saw some soldiers on an eminence not very distant; that should I be perceived, he must suffer for his inattention, and even I should be sharply reprimanded by government.81 Despite her lively account of the episode, we must suspect that this is largely fictional, given that the inscription from the entrance to the temple, which features in her narrative, had actually been removed to Portici some years before, but Lady Miller was writing to entertain, not to instruct, and so may be forgiven her sleight of hand. Accordingly, she continues her account with a ‘droll accident’ whereby she climbed up a ladder to peer through a broken wall, only to tumble headfirst into an unexcavated room, concluding ‘I inwardly congratulated myself on being the first to enter this room, which had been closed up for so many hundred years.’82 Once news of the discoveries had spread through Europe, Naples became a compulsory stop on the ‘Grand Tour’. This expression is primarily valid as a description of the European tours made by young British noblemen, whilst the ‘Voyage d’Italie’ and ‘Italienische Reise’ of tourists from France and Germany generated a greater diversity of visitors and responses to the site.83 Several of them – including Charles-Nicolas Cochin, Charles de Brosses, Abbé de Saint-Non and Joseph Lalande – sent reports to the large academies in Paris. Some were also correspondents of other European academies, such as the Royal Society of Antiquaries in London.84 Nevertheless, their descriptions were not necessarily works of professional scholarship and might even repeat whole passages from earlier accounts. In a tradition going

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back to Maximilien Misson’s Nouveau voyage d’Italie (1691), travel accounts were not reliable, objective accounts of what had been seen on tour. Instead, they reflected the personality of their authors, who wrote as much inspired by what they had themselves read as by what they had seen and tended to do so with a critical gaze.85 Given political sensitivities of the time, the outraged comments of travellers about the excavation of Pompeii should not be taken at face value. Like the tradition of landscape painting (vedute) that arose at this time, which evoked the atmosphere of scenes rather than their reality, travel journals were literary exercises that perpetuated stereotypical images, whether of tarantella-dancers or of individuals barred from viewing whatever they wanted at Pompeii.86 Comments like those of Latapie – ‘This description will be as precise as my furtive notes that I took on location and the weak knowledge which I have of the arts and my memory will permit’ – were intended to hook his readers. His tendency towards exaggeration is betrayed by his claim that the current generation would not see anything published by the Bourbon regime.87 Letters from Abbé Barthélemy to the Comte de Caylus in 1755–56 reveal that visitors to Rome were not surprised to be offered paintings from Pompeii for sale. In the first letter in which he mentions such paintings (5 November 1755), the Abbé Barthélemy asks his friend to keep quiet about them, since, he says, M. de la Condamine wants to be the first to make such paintings known in France. This captures well the competitive atmosphere of the times. By 11 November 1755, the Abbé has bought one of the paintings at great expense and it is only much later, on 17 February 1756, that a letter from M. de la Condamine to the Comte de Caylus raises questions about their authenticity: the paintings were probably created by a painter in Rome, taking advantage of the fact that the secrecy surrounding the excavations gave potential purchasers little chance of testing their authenticity. The King of Naples subsequently bought the remaining paintings, perhaps in fear that the circulation even of forgeries purporting to come from Pompeii might undermine the exclusivity of his collection.88 More skilled collectors acquired real antiquities from Pompeii despite high levels of security, as an account of a visit to Hamilton by Goethe reveals. He recounts how, as a trusted friend, he was allowed to see artworks stored in a secret vault: Seeing a long box lying on the ground with the lid partly open, I had the curiosity to push back the lid, and behold! two splendid bronze candelabra. With a sign I drew Hackert’s attention to this treasure, and whispered to him whether they did not look entirely like those in Portici. In reply, he beckoned me to hold my tongue; it was no doubt possible they might have strayed hither from the vaults of Pompeii. With such and similar happy acquisitions the knight might have very good reason for allowing a sight of his hidden treasures only to his most trustworthy friends.89

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Despite the high level of secrecy surrounding Pompeii, some artists produced pictures of the site by stealth, by memory, or, in cases where their patron was of sufficiently high status, by royal permission. Sir John Soane explained in his third lecture to the Royal Academy in 1810 that his drawings of the Temple of Isis ‘were made from sketches made by stealth by moonlight, and are, I believe, accurate’. This belief was sadly not justified.90 German and German-Swiss painters at court, including Angelica Kauffmann, Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein and Jakob Philipp Hackert, were supported by Queen Maria Carolina.91 Hackert became court painter in 1786, shortly after which Goethe commented on his privileged place at court, as ‘the famous landscape painter, who enjoys the special confidence and peculiar favour of the king and queen’. Goethe further noted the special trust in him by the queen, who had asked him to instruct her daughters in art, found pleasure in his company and delighted in discussing artistic matters. He was permitted to produce several scenes of the ruins at Pompeii which, in common with his work as a whole, are distinguished by their realistic, almost photographic, character, as in a panoramic view over the Theatre District painted in 1799 (Plate 1). This is partly an illusion, since the panoramic view is not true to life: the Temple of Isis is bigger and higher than it should be. In the case of this painting, the importance of the individual who commissioned the work, Thomas Noel Hill, 2nd Lord Berwick, may have helped to secure permission to produce it. This commission can best be understood against the political background, as Napoleon was advancing ever closer to Naples. In this case, Ferdinand IV’s authorization of the painting may have been prompted by his realization that the British might become allies against Napoleon, with this being one way of winning support.92

Pompeian taste Discoveries at Pompeii spurred on neoclassical taste in Europe during the second half of the eighteenth century.93 Popular motifs taken from Pompeian wall-paintings included dancing maenads, candelabra, vine-tendrils and centaurs. These appeared in new guises on porcelain, pottery, furniture, wallpaper, plaster and upholstery. Furniture designs imitated the form and decoration of Pompeian chairs, tables and tripods. These designs were disseminated officially via Le antichità and the porcelain produced by the Royal Porcelain Factory at Capodimonte. In 1739, after marrying the daughter of the Saxon Elector, Maria Amalia, Charles set up a soft-paste porcelain factory in the grounds of his palace at Capodimonte in emulation of her father’s prestigious Meissen porcelain. On his departure to rule Spain, Charles relocated the factory to Madrid – artists, moulds, clay and all – ordering the destruction of the kilns and machinery left behind in Naples.94 This reflected his view that the porcelain factory was his personal

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achievement. In 1771, however, Ferdinand re-established a factory, favouring designs relating to Neapolitan folk-life and local scenery. A change of direction came in 1779 when Domenico Venuti, son of one of the original excavators at Herculaneum, became Director of the Royal Factory. This resulted in a series of designs drawing explicitly upon the local archaeological discoveries.95 For example, the design of one dish (c. 1780/83) is drawn from Plate XXXIX in Volume Three of Le antichità, an image from the ‘Villa of Cicero’ near the ‘Herculaneum Gate’, depicting a dancing maenad (Figure 3.5). The dish is marked on its reverse ‘Herculaneum Museum, series of pictures, Bacchant dancing in the air, found in the excavations of Civita’.96

FIGURE 3.5 Le antichità di Ercolano esposte, Vol.3: plate 29 (Naples: Regia Stamperia, 1762) https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/ diglit/ercolano1762bd3/0163/image,info

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Venuti was limited to using only images that had already been published, but the porcelain provided the opportunity for these images to be presented in colour for the first time. At the same time, a seismic shift occurred in allowing the porcelain to be sold on the open market rather than being a royal monopoly.97 Neoclassical inspiration spread beyond individual objects to encompass even whole rooms, such as the Red Drawing Room at Syon House (West London) designed by Robert Adam for the Earl of Northumberland. Its ceiling included 239 roundels containing images painted by Giovanni Battista Cipriani in 1764–5, which were inspired by the centaurs and dancers in Le antichità.98 By contrast, neoclassical designs based upon the Bourbon discoveries took a long time to emerge in domestic decoration in Naples. Alongside the incorporation of original antiquities into Portici palace, baroque and chinoiserie styles were more prominent than the neoclassical.99 Some responsibility for this rests with Tanucci. Whereas Galiani had written to Tanucci in 1767 that the newly discovered images had the potential to inspire artisans of all kinds, including goldsmiths, jewellery-makers, carriage painters and upholsterers, Tanucci refused to believe that antiquities could possibly be of interest beyond a small circle of scholars and nobility, declaring that the Herculaneum volumes were ‘antiquarian, to few people’s taste and starting to be nauseous’.100 Neoclassical design in Naples was instead promoted through foreign artists under the queen’s patronage.101 Another foreigner – Sir William Hamilton – played a major role in promoting neoclassical culture to his own substantial financial advantage. He bought up existing private collections of antiquities and purchased any that he could from local excavations.102 His villa Palazzo Sessa became a centre of patronage and an essential stopping-point on the Grand Tour. Hamilton himself influenced taste via his collection of vases and their publication and his wife Emma via her (in)famous ‘attitudes’, dramatic poses that evoked graceful (and scantily dressed) figures from classical antiquity.103 Pompeian neoclassicism began to gain traction at Naples only as a reflection of the enthusiasm of the rest of Europe for the finds made in the Vesuvian cities. King Ferdinand mostly remained immune to their charms, still preferring to hunt. Tanucci’s correspondence to Charles III on 3 December 1771 illustrates the royal couple’s desultory response to classical busts. Having been displayed in rooms at Portici Palace, they were moved to the Herculanense Museum, because “the King has not yet embraced the taste for antiquity [. . .] His Majesty told me: the Queen is right when she says that with so many bald heads of marble the royal quarters are melancholy, like a cemetery”.104 It was only by the 1790s that the Bourbons embraced Pompeian decoration in refurbishing the Villa Favorita at Resina, where sofas and armchairs were commissioned that incorporated oval panels depicting dancing maenads inspired by originals from Pompeii (1796–99).105 Somewhat later, Francis I caught up with the rest of Europe, in commissioning a Pompeian room in the Palace of Capodimonte (1829–31).106

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Pompeian taste also extended beyond the nobility. Wallpaper designs produced by the Réveillon factory in Paris between 1770 and 1775 included imitations of the garlands and dancing figures found in Pompeian wall paintings. They were not cheap, but still reached a wide market. The production got caught up in the tinderbox of revolutionary France, with the factory being destroyed in April 1789 after a wage dispute, but the gap in the market was quickly filled by the Arthur et Robert firm, with such designs continuing to be produced into the nineteenth century.107 The potteries founded by Josiah Wedgwood in Staffordshire also played a crucial role in disseminating neoclassical taste. By 1770, the Wedgwood firm had copies of six volumes of Le antichità to draw on for inspiration (he also subscribed to the English version produced in 1773, mentioned earlier), to supplement the illustrations of Hamilton’s collection of ‘Etruscan’ vases. By 1773 his sales catalogue included a ‘Set of Herculaneum Figures’.108 By the end of the eighteenth century, Pompeian taste was spreading from the nobility to the middle classes. This set the scene for Pompeii to impact upon a wider social group than ever during the nineteenth century, but before we turn to that topic, Chapter 4 considers first the continuing impact of politics upon Pompeii during the nineteenth century.

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4 The Politics of Archaeology

If you would like to put all the newspaper writers, all the artists, painters, sculptors, and architects, in a state of ecstasy, you have but to issue a decree couched in these terms: ‘In the name of the artistic world, the excavations of Pompeii shall be resumed and continued without interruption, as soon as I reach Naples. G. Garibaldi, dictator.’ Letter from ALEXANDRE DUMAS to GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI, 25 August 18601

Napoleonic Naples The last year of the eighteenth century was a turbulent one in Naples, with the short-lived Parthenopean Republic lasting from January to June in 1799, under the control of France. Following a misguided attempt to attack French forces in Rome, the Bourbon monarchs had been forced into exile at the end of 1798 and, escorted by Nelson’s ships, took refuge in another part of their kingdom, Palermo.2 In their absence, the French had been planning to seize the kingdom’s antiquities, as they had done in 1797 in Venice, from where the famous gilded bronze horses of St Mark’s had been seized as war booty to be set up on a triumphal arch in Paris. Ferdinand was restored to his throne in the summer of 1799, but his relationship with Napoleon remained insecure. His kingdom’s antiquities had a part to play in soothing this strained relationship, with the French ambassador, Charles Alquier, suggesting that a selection of antiquities should be sent to Paris as a sign of friendship.3 Since the initial aim was to reconstruct a typical Roman room, papyri, objects of precious metal (such as jewellery), paintings, sacred and domestic bronzes, armour, weighing tools, terracotta lamps and a mosaic were sent to the private collection of Empress Josephine at Malmaison in 1802. This marked them out as different from other artistic treasures which had become part of national collections in Paris. Attitudes towards them varied: in his description of the items sent, the antiquarian Francesco Carelli was at pains to emphasize how rare many of them were, and that even 59

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everyday items like cooking pots should on that account be prized.4 By contrast, Ferdinand’s finance minister Giuseppe Zulo wrote to John Acton, prime minister of Naples, on 4 February 1802: ‘These pieces are of very little importance, and we have a large number of them.’5 Ostensibly, these antiquities were part of an exchange of gifts, with Alquier proposing that in return the king of Naples would like some hunting guns and that it would be a good idea to send some French porcelain to the queen.6 This fooled noone. After Naples once more went to war unsuccessfully with France in 1805 and Ferdinand was again forced into exile, he took with him as many antiquities and other artistic treasures as possible out of the reach of the French.7 Naples then remained under Napoleonic control from 1806 to 1815, providing an important source of money, men, raw materials and equipment in support of Napoleon’s expansion across Europe. On 8 February 1806, Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon’s eldest brother, crossed the border as the new ruler of Naples, to be succeeded (on his departure for greater things in Spain in May 1808) by Joachim Murat, the husband of Napoleon’s youngest sister Caroline.8 Joseph Bonaparte’s enthusiasm for Pompeii is suggested by the fact that he made his first formal visit there on 2 March 1806, less than a month after he had taken up his new position. He also issued a proclamation in February 1808 regulating excavation and the treatment of finds, but the brevity of his reign imposed limits on the extent of his intervention.9 By contrast, the Murats were in power long enough for their reign to mark a surge of interest in Pompeii. Queen Caroline devoted energy to visiting Pompeii repeatedly and pouring in money to fund excavation, with the aim of clearing the whole of Pompeii within three or four years. Some years later, her daughter wrote in her memoirs of her childhood of how Pompeii had spurred on her mother’s interest in antiquity, despite the fact that she had not received much formal education. In a letter written in 1864, she describes how her mother ‘occupied herself passionately with the excavations at Pompeii, obtained permission from the king for soldiers to help the works that she had undertaken for bringing back this ancient town from the ashes under which it had been buried for so many centuries and she directed and oversaw everything herself’. She also recalls in another letter of 1867 how the royal family and their guests were keen to witness digging on the site. They would then return to Naples, having dined among the ruins, ‘enchanted by this artistic fête’.10 Caroline herself would remove the objects found on such occasions, such as coins and jewels, to her apartments in Naples.11 From May 1812 to January 1813, when acting as regent, Caroline took steps to speed up the digging at Pompeii. She issued a decree on 29 September and 2 October 1812 urging that ‘the delay of this uncovering is a real loss for the present generation’. This prompted steps to expropriate lands in private ownership where digging was needed.12 After the end of her regency, she continued to intervene in public affairs. In a letter to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of 28 April 1813, she expressed her displeasure at the fact

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that she had not been kept informed: ‘I made known my desire that as soon as the appearance of the land or buildings at Pompeii should indicate or promise some interesting discovery, all work should be immediately suspended at that spot, being limited to preparing and clearing the environs so as not to continue digging except in my presence’. This was despite the fact that already in November 1808, it is recorded that efforts were being made in response to a request from her to ensure that she was not disappointed, by preparing digs for her to witness.13 This period saw significant change in how finds were published, with the first guides to the site being produced. There was also a shift in perspective: the lavish volumes by the French architect François Mazois, Les Ruines de Pompéi, which Caroline commissioned, gave the first systematic account of Pompeii’s architecture, with Volume 1 appearing in 1812.14 As Napoleon’s sister who was the closest to him, Caroline had become a major figure in Paris before moving to Naples. Furthermore, with excellent contacts in the imperial administration and (in the words of her daughter) ‘energy and talents much above those of her sex’, Caroline was more dominant in Naples than her husband. Her personality had a lasting impact upon Pompeii. Murat’s ambitions led to his downfall when in 1815 he misguidedly marched northwards, in the hope of becoming King of United Italy. His defeat at the Battle of Tolentino on 3 May marked the turning point in his fortunes: he was forced to depart from Naples for the last time on 19 May, leaving the way open for the return of the Bourbon dynasty from exile.15

The return of the Bourbons and the early career of Giuseppe Fiorelli Once the Bourbons returned from exile, there were elements of continuity with the Napoleonic era, especially the practice of staging excavations for the entertainment of distinguished visitors, who were then invited by the king to take home with them the objects found before their eyes. Such gifts are recorded in the excavation journals: in 1828, the heir apparent to Prussia was presented with a small circular vase of bronze with silver inlay, a bronze coin, a spindle of bone, twelve pieces of glass and a terracotta cup. Other finds were given to Grand Duchess Elena of Russia and the King of Bavaria in 1829.16 The new approach to publication also continued, with sixteen volumes of Real Museo Borbonico published by the Stamperia Reale from 1824 to 1857, Gell and Gandy’s Pompeiana in 1817–19 and picture books like Henry Wilkins’ Suite de vues pittoresques des ruines de Pompeii in 1819.17 Although an immediate rush of visitors was only to be expected after Napoleon’s defeat in 1815 as the Continent opened up again to the British

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in particular, what was perhaps less anticipated was the way in which the initial rush did not die away. Instead, travellers to Italy kept on increasing in number during successive decades, with significant numbers of Americans joining in during the 1840s and 1850s, as steamships began to travel regularly across the Atlantic.18 Visitors began to return to Naples, with as many as 7,000 foreigners staying in Naples in 1837. As in the eighteenth century, these visitors included many distinguished royal personages. In honour of the visit of the Dowager Queen Adelaide of England in November 1838, parts of the site being excavated at that time were named after her (‘House of Queen Adelaide of England’, VII.xiv.5, 18, 19, and the ‘Alley of the Queen’s Excavation’, running from north to south between VII.xiii and VII.xiv).19 The last Bourbon decades also witnessed visits from a wider range of visitors than previously. American visitors included the writers and poets William Cullen Bryant, James Fenimore Cooper, William Giles Dix, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville and Catharine Maria Sedgwick.20 The 1830s saw several changes in the provision of transportation, which encouraged greater numbers to make the journey into Italy. Napoleon’s ‘Grande Route Militaire’ over the Simplon Pass was supplemented by the end of the 1830s by roads that could support wheeled traffic over the St Bernard, St Gotthard, and Brenner Passes, substantially decreasing the discomfort and dangers of crossing the Alps. During the same decade, a regular steamship service began to run between Marseilles and Naples. Furthermore, Ferdinand II’s encouragement of the construction of the first railway line in Italy, from Naples to Granatello in 1839 (extended to Pompeii in 1844), which was envisaged as the first step in creating a long-distance link with northern Italy, made the Kingdom more accessible to travellers within Italy itself.21 Despite a period of relative stability and prosperity in the 1830s, an uprising in 1844 sought to make Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies the constitutional sovereign of a united Italy; from then on, liberal unrest spread in Naples, creating a turbulent political background for the organization of the excavations at Pompeii and the Museum in Naples.22 It is during this period, from 1843, that the career of one man, the Neapolitan born Giuseppe Fiorelli (1823–96), began to be inextricably linked with the history of excavation at Pompeii. The name of Giuseppe Fiorelli is often associated with the rise of a more scientific approach to archaeological exploration at Pompeii.23 It is no exaggeration to state that both the site of Pompeii and Naples Museum were totally transformed under his direction, the former from 1860 and the latter concurrently from 1863 until 1875. In many respects, however, his innovations can be viewed as largely representing pragmatic responses to problems, especially political ones, rather than springing from an awareness of the need to transform archaeology for its own sake. His reforms in Naples and Pompeii appear not to have sprung solely from his own ideas, but to have drawn upon earlier suggestions, notably proposals made in 1848–49,

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which had been intended to bring some order and discipline to the excavation and administration of Pompeii. Admittedly, Fiorelli had played an important part in drawing up these proposals, but the likelihood of input from others, notably Raffaele d’Ambra who actually signed the report on these proposals, should not be forgotten. Changes at Pompeii should be seen within their contemporary political context. Fiorelli’s early career was closely dependent upon personalities and politics in Naples.24 His main interests were numismatics and law. He was not an archaeologist as such, but archaeology was still not a distinct discipline in this period: the excavations at Pompeii had always been directed by an engineer or architect. Fiorelli was appointed in 1844 to a post as an Inspector for the Superintendency in the coin-room of Naples Museum. The following year, he participated in the Seventh Congress of Italian Scientists in Naples, which Ferdinand II sponsored in an attempt to show that he was not as narrow-minded as some of his liberal opponents claimed. Even at this early stage in his career, Fiorelli was not content to cherish the status quo, but attempted to make accessible the whole coin collection of the Museum. Even though we do not know anything about Fiorelli’s political sympathies at this time, participants at the congress took the opportunity of such a gathering to debate political issues. Despite the fact that the King entertained them lavishly for two weeks, they persisted in pursuing their own agenda to such an extent that the Neapolitans dubbed them ‘scoscienziati’ (‘men without conscience’) rather than ‘scienziati’ (‘scientists’).25 Fiorelli started his self-defence of 1849, written during his imprisonment (discussed later), by distancing himself from political concerns, despite his training in the law: ‘I was drawn by my peaceful and tranquil spirit to prefer to the turbulent business of the forum the placid and strict studies of archaeology, and to live more with the ancients than with my contemporaries.26 This contrasts markedly with the later tendency of his compatriots to paint him as a hero of the Risorgimento. In his obituary notice for Fiorelli in 1896, Giulio De Petra claimed that it was because of Fiorelli’s influence ‘in inspiring him with feelings of liberty and Italianness’ that the Count of Syracuse wrote in 1860 to his nephew, the King, urging him to abdicate, and to Victor Emmanuel, pledging his loyalty.27 In 1847, Fiorelli was transferred to Pompeii as Inspector of the Royal Excavations at Pompeii. On arriving there and on finding that malpractices had flourished there since the Bourbon restoration, Fiorelli came into conflict with the site’s Director, Carlo Bonucci. Fiorelli criticized the lack of concern for the preservation of finds on site and the potential corruption made possible by the presence of a private house owned by Dell’ Aquila, who had been contracted to excavate to the north-east of the site, within the confines of the excavations.28 This house still stands within the modern site. He also condemned administrative irregularities, thefts and bribery, pointing the finger at Bonucci. These criticisms gained him several enemies, who were soon to turn against him.29 Furthermore, because of the inseparability of

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archaeology from the royal court, Fiorelli’s criticisms ran the risk of being not just academic observations, but of crossing the fine line between objective administrative criticism and criticism of the government, and by implication the King. It is difficult to judge, however, the extent to which Fiorelli himself was following a liberal agenda in making these criticisms. His friendship with prominent ‘liberals’, such as Mariano D’Ayala and Pasquale Stanislao Mancini may suggest that he was prompted to speak out against abuses for political as well as academic reasons.30 Ferdinand II’s decree on 29 January 1848 granting a constitution was widely celebrated in Naples, but euphoria soon gave way to anarchy. On 10 March, spurred on by the extremist Aurelio Saliceti and supported by the national guard, radical students took it upon themselves to expel Jesuits from Naples, whilst the chief of police and the government could only look on. Saliceti also demanded a declaration of war in pursuance of Italian independence, as was declared on 7 April.31 Fiorelli’s response to this highly charged atmosphere was to form a volunteer unit of the national guard from among the custodians of Pompeii.32 On 10 March he wrote a letter to the newspaper Il Tempo, declaring that, together with the custodians of Pompeii, he was ready to defend the Constitution with two cannons and a company of artillery, having sworn absolute loyalty to the King.33 Despite the distraction of foreign affairs, the domestic crisis deepened further, as it became clear that the deputies were not prepared to take an oath of allegiance to the King and the Constitution at the opening of Parliament on 15 May. The rebellion spread to the streets, where barricades were erected, leading to widespread bloodshed when troops were called in to disperse protestors.34 It seems all the more remarkable that it was only a week before, on 8 May, that Ferdinand II had established the ‘Commission for the Reorganization and Reform of the Bourbon Museum and the ancient Excavations in the Kingdom’, of which Fiorelli was the Secretary. This Commission drew up a far-reaching ‘law’ covering all aspects of archaeology, which was to reveal all too clearly the close relationship between politics and archaeology at the time.35 Fiorelli was a leading voice in drawing up these new regulations for the Museum and excavations, some of which attempted to combat the corruption and thefts that had been taking place, establishing a fixed code of conduct for the custodians, including penalties for omitting to report finds, and transferring elsewhere personnel known to be corrupt. The whole administrative structure at Pompeii was to be altered. The four Supervisors at Pompeii were to be properly qualified, and to hold their posts for two years only, and a new post of Inspector was to be introduced above that of Architect Director, a measure that was largely a response to Bonucci’s corrupt practices. A programme for proper publication of the excavations, complete with pictures and plans, was also drawn up. The proposals extended far into the academic community, suggesting that excavation should be incorporated into a teaching framework, with six professorships being established in Naples University, receiving stipends

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from the Museum. The Royal Herculaneum Academy was to lose many of its privileges, not least its monopoly in publishing finds from Pompeii, which was to devolve to a body of professional scholars, the Superintendency, including the six new professors. Official drawings of finds were to be delivered to the Superintendency, and not to the Academy. Had it been executed, this step would have decisively severed the royal court’s control and deprived it of this unique source of prestige. Another significant change in ideology is reflected in the first article proposed by the law, stating that the Museum’s displays were to be for the benefit of all citizens. This marked a major shift away from the idea of a jealously guarded royal collection, open only to a select few on request. No longer was a special permit from the royal household to be necessary for a visit to Pompeii, although visitors were not to be allowed to wander around unattended. This new emphasis on accessibility extended to rules about publication: in future, anyone was to be allowed to draw objects on display, with the proviso that objects remained protected for the first four years. Even more radical was talk of the national ownership of some objects. Finally, the suggestion was made to establish a museum at Pompeii itself, not as a challenge to Naples Museum, but in order to accommodate objects not wanted there, such as empty amphoras without inscriptions, everyday cooking wares, uninscribed lead piping, skeletons, perfume jars, and fragments of all sorts of metal and pottery. The law was submitted to the Ministry on 3 November 1848, but political tensions deepened and the King disbanded the commission on 28 August 1849. As a result, the reforms proposed in the law were doomed. Earlier that same year, on 24 April, Fiorelli himself was arrested for political crimes against the King and was imprisoned. The extent of Fiorelli’s actual involvement in political conspiracy at the time is unclear, but what is clear is that the swiftness of accusations made against him was largely thanks to the enemies he had made through his criticisms. In his self-defence, which he wrote in prison and in a letter to the German archaeologist Henzen of 3 January 1849, Fiorelli reported that his accusers included Carlo Bonucci, whose corrupt practices Fiorelli had tried to suppress.36 Fiorelli’s enemies were powerful enough to secure him about ten months in prison, but even during this time he attempted to correct some of the deficiencies he had detected in Pompeian scholarship. During his imprisonment, he gathered together information on the excavation of Pompeii from contemporary documents produced since 1748. He clearly saw the importance of publishing contemporary accounts of the excavations. On release from prison in 1850, he published the first in a projected series of about eight volumes bringing together this invaluable material on the history of the excavations. By doing so, Fiorelli was deemed to have offended against the regulation that all publications dealing with the excavations needed official sanction. As a result, one of his arch-enemies, Bernardo Quaranta, instigated the authorities to search Fiorelli’s house, seizing and

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burning the manuscripts found there, along with the printed book itself, Giornale degli scavi di Pompei: documenti originali pubblicati con note e appendice.37 Fiorelli tried to find a publisher outside Naples, but without success, so this project was only continued with the change in political climate in 1860.38 Although effectively excluded from returning to any official public position in the aftermath of his imprisonment, Fiorelli acted as private secretary to Count Leopold of Syracuse from 1853 to 1860, supervising his excavations in the necropolis of Cumae and publishing in 1857 a volume of the painted pots found there. What Fiorelli did manage to publish on Pompeii in this period set new standards in accuracy.39 His publication of Oscan inscriptions from the town of 1854 (Monumenta epigraphica Pompeiana ad fidem archetyporum expressa. Pars prima. Inscriptionum Oscarum apographa) contained large illustrations, reproducing the letters’ form and colours by means of the new technique of chromolithography (the art of printing colours from stone).40 This format was ahead of its time, setting a new standard, which was initially adopted also by the earliest volumes of Latin inscriptions in the series Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (published by the Berlin Academy from 1863).41 As the title of Fiorelli’s book indicates (pars prima), it was envisaged as being only the first in a comprehensive series publishing all the inscriptions from Pompeii, but it remained the only one to be published. Another innovation had more far-reaching effects. Fiorelli’s publication of an overall map of the excavations in 1858 (Tabula Coloniae Veneriae Corneliae Pompeis), dividing the town up into sections, became the basis for all future work on Pompeii’s topography (Map 4.1). The map was

MAP 4.1 Fiorelli’s system of Regiones [L. H. Davies].

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supplemented by a three-page article, ‘On the regions of Pompeii and their ancient distribution’, which suggested that the urban development of Pompeii was reflected in its physical layout.42 His system of dividing the town up into nine regions (regiones) and town-blocks (insulae), although subsequently modified in its detailed arrangements (given that his proposals for the layout of the then unexcavated areas did not match what was later found there), was to become the standard way of pinpointing a particular location in the town. The value of his system is only too clear when compared with the alternative system often adopted, of naming houses after their supposed owners or in honour of some contemporary figure or event. To give a single example in full, the ‘House of the Faun’ (VI.xii.2, 5, 7) has also been known at different times as ‘House of Pan’, ‘House of Goethe’, ‘House of the Large Mosaic’, ‘House of the family of Purius Magius’, ‘House of Arbaces the Egyptian’, ‘House of the Battle of Alexander’, ‘House of M. Cassius’, and ‘House of the Lucretii Satrii’. Houses have often accumulated a whole series of names, as their owners have been re-identified, or as the honorand faded in significance (the ‘House of the Faun’ being named as the ‘House of Goethe’ in honour of the famous writer’s son who was present at its excavation in 1830, but who died of smallpox a few days later). Likewise, as political circumstances changed, so too could the names of Pompeian houses, with the ‘House of Queen Caroline’ (VIII.iii.14) being initially named in honour of Caroline Murat, but becoming the ‘House of Adone’ with the return of the Bourbons, only to revert to its original name once more after they were deposed. Fiorelli himself was extremely cautious of such a habit, stating in his article that ‘I have excluded any arbitrary naming, as many times as I have not succeeded in knowing for certain the real names of the owners of places’.

Giuseppe Garibaldi and Alexandre Dumas Giuseppe Garibaldi entered Naples on 7 September 1860. As early as 12 September, he issued an edict handing over the Bourbons’ collections in the Palazzo degli Studii to the Ministry of Public Instruction, followed on 16 September by an edict that the excavations at Pompeii should be immediately resumed with funding of 5,000 scudi per annum. The fact that Naples’ antiquities had been so closely bound up with the monarchy explains why Garibaldi was swift to reallocate the royal collections, like other royal property, to public ownership. His description of the excavations as ‘national property’ is critical in underlining this fundamental shift in the status of the kingdom’s antiquities. No longer were they regarded as the personal possession of its rulers, but as belonging to the whole of Italy. This was reinforced by a decree of 17 October renaming the ‘Royal Bourbon Museum’ as the ‘National Museum of Antiquities and the Arts’.43 Soon afterwards, on 22 October, Garibaldi spent over two hours at Pompeii, the visit being

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captured in a photograph by Giorgio Sommer (1834–1914), which he issued as a stereo postcard, of Garibaldi posing with his entourage within the Macellum (known then as the ‘Pantheon’) (Figure 4.1).44 One of his changes, however, proved to be a grave error of judgement, offending local sensibilities. On 15 September 1860, he appointed a foreigner as the Honorary Director of the Museum and excavations alongside the existing Museum Director, Principe di San Giorgio Domenico Spinelli, who retained his post from 1852 until his death in 1863. This was the Frenchman Alexandre Dumas (1802–70), better known to us as the author of historical novels, such as The Three Musketeers.45 Dumas had been an enthusiastic supporter of Garibaldi, eager not just to witness an adventure that might

FIGURE 4.1 Photograph of Garibaldi at Pompeii, taken by Giorgio Sommer. Bridgeman Images FGL1066234.

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have come from the pages of one of his novels, but also to participate actively in the conflict. His offer to Garibaldi in a letter of 21 June to procure weapons from France met with a warm response. Dumas also bore a personal grudge against the Bourbons, in the belief that Ferdinand IV had poisoned his father in 1806, having imprisoned him in 1799. Dumas declared: ‘Moreover there is another ground – a personal one, too – why I should feel particularly glad for Garibaldi to take Sicily. . . . It happens that I am at war with the King of Sicily.’46 In 1834, his name had appeared on a blacklist of those to be barred from entering the Kingdom, for fear that he would stir up revolutionaries, and he claimed that King Ferdinand had threatened him with serving in the galleys for four years if he were to set foot in Naples. As well as providing Garibaldi’s forces with one thousand muskets and 550 rifles, he wrote fulsome accounts of Garibaldi’s victories and acted as the general’s ambassador.47 Dumas asked for two rewards at the successful conclusion of the campaign – charge of the excavations and Museum and permission to hunt in the park of Capodimonte.48 Dumas had prepared the ground for this request, by urging Garibaldi already in August to announce that he would resume the excavations at Pompeii, even drafting a decree for him to issue (cited at the beginning of this chapter). Dumas was enthusiastic about digging at Pompeii, but it was apparent to all that he was not suited to the task he proposed. Even Dumas’ compatriot, Colonel Bordone, suggested to Garibaldi that he should turn down Dumas’ request, since he was the ‘most prolific and most whimsical of novelists’, ill-suited to a task that ‘required the perseverance and patience of a Benedictine’.49 Maxime Du Camp, a fellow-Frenchman who had also volunteered to serve under Garibaldi, gives a sympathetic version of events in his autobiographical memoirs, narrating Dumas’ enthusiasm to restart excavations that had been neglected under the previous regime and being full of plans to recruit scholars, archaeologists, engravers and draughtsmen from Paris.50 It seems that Garibaldi felt that he owed Dumas something, however, and he came up with a compromise whereby Dumas was made only Honorary Director. This provoked a letter from Dumas on 16 October, protesting that ‘I asked for a title without salary, but I did not ask for a sinecure’ and asking for a revised decree to be issued, appointing him Active Director. Garibaldi made no change to his initial decree, however.51 Dumas’ interest in Pompeii was no passing fancy: he had devoted several chapters of his 1843 work describing his travels, Le Corricolo, to an account of his visit to Herculaneum, Pompeii and Naples Museum in 1835.52 His ambition was to produce an illustrated history, updated by the results of the excavations he intended to promote. Neapolitans were outraged at Dumas’ appointment, whilst Garibaldi’s extra concession, that Dumas should reside in the palace of Chiatamone, formerly belonging to the Murats, did nothing to alleviate their hostility. On 16 September, only a day after Garibaldi had appointed Dumas, Fausto Niccolini, Secretary of the National Museum,

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wrote to Garibaldi to warn him that Dumas’ appointment affronted ‘our rightful national pride’, besides objecting to the appointment of a novelist to safeguard ‘our monuments’.53 A newspaper article on 25 September protested at the appointment, stating that ‘Italians feel it is a great scandal. It seems to them that a director of the Museums might have been found in Italy with much greater merit than this Frenchman.’ Finally, Dumas himself lost heart when a popular demonstration against him, albeit of only 300 men, and lasting a few minutes, chanted ‘Out with the foreigner!’ On 8 November, Dumas’ appointment fell victim of the plebiscite in favour of the annexation of Naples to the Kingdom of Italy on 21 October, which effectively cancelled Garibaldi’s reforms and laws.54 Dumas had devised ambitious plans for Pompeii and the Museum, which he published on 17 September in a pamphlet entitled ‘Project for a National School of Painting, Sculpture, and Literature’, and also in a series of articles in the Indipendente after he had been forced to resign. His political sympathies contributed to some of his plans for Pompeii, since he declared that ‘I want to arrange the performance one day in the restored theatre of Pompeii of Aeschylus’ Prometheus, and to applaud the first Titan fighting against the first Tyrant for the triumph of the same idea which 5,000 years later is victorious today.’ He also drew Garibaldi’s attention to the fact that some of the employees at Pompeii had not been paid for two months. Otherwise, two more of his plans are worth noting. First, he proposed that on next discovering a rich house, it should be restored to its state in ad 79, complete with its furniture, and that it should function as a local museum and educational resource for archaeologists, architects and painters. Second, he suggested introducing some sort of entrance fee for visitors to the site, which would be used to support students of painting, architecture and sculpture. This proposal foreshadows what Fiorelli implemented soon afterwards, although the eagerness to reconstruct a building had to wait some years longer, because of the lack of funds. The thwarted plans of Dumas retain their importance because they mark a shift towards a more professional attitude towards the ruins, which began to be transformed from a means of glorifying the Bourbons to a site with an educational purpose.

Fiorelli’s career under the Risorgimento The subsequent advancement of the local Fiorelli must have seemed much more felicitous to the Neapolitans.55 In 1860 he was appointed as Inspector of the excavations of Pompeii (7 December) and to a new chair of archaeology at Naples University (29 October), which he held until November 1863 when he took over the direction of Naples Museum alongside that of the site of Pompeii, as its Superintendent.56 He is often acclaimed for adopting more rigorous archaeological methods and is best known for preserving the bodies

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of Vesuvius’ victims by creating plaster casts of them. This was his second idea for dealing with the problem of the site’s collection of bones: in 1848, he had suggested transferring skeletons to the Institute of Anatomy at the University, but the King had vetoed this idea.57 In fact, Fiorelli was not the first to adopt this archaeological technique, but he did extend its use more widely (see Chapter 6 in this volume).58 Once Fiorelli was installed as Inspector of Pompeii, important reforms were implemented. A new system of excavating was introduced and the content of excavation daybooks was regulated, according to regulations published in 1861.59 Chapter 1 establishes a systematic method of excavating, whereby digging should proceed from the site’s walls or gates and then work inwards along main streets, completing the clearing of each area before moving on to a new one. Chapters 2–6 deal with the duties of the various personnel on site, from Inspector down to workmen. Chapter 7 sets out how daily records were to be compiled, to include details of the date, time at which the work started and ended, the number of workmen, the precise place of excavation and the number and quality of objects and buildings found. An architect was to add his observations. Each record was to be numbered and stamped on every page and submitted to Fiorelli as the Inspector of the excavations. Chapter 8 relates to the sending of finds to the National Archaeological Museum in Naples. Chapters 9–13 deal with other practical matters relating to the protection of the site and the guides available to visitors. Fiorelli’s work marked a fundamental shift in approach to the antiquities of Pompeii, building upon the change in perspective already seen in Mazois’ attention to the site’s architectural history. Fiorelli now sought to elucidate the town’s overall history. Furthermore, his work acknowledged that texts were of only limited use in reconstructing ancient history, and that archaeological evidence could be used extensively as an independent source, stating that textual sources are ‘certainly not sufficient for reconstructing the history of Pompeii’.60 These new aims were encapsulated in his publication of 1875, Descrizione di Pompei. This was essentially a tour of the town, describing its state in 79, but containing a substantial introduction considering both archaeological and literary evidence for the site’s earlier history. His overarching conception of the town was also physically represented in a different form of publication, namely the model on a scale of 1:100 depicting the whole of the site as excavated up to 1861. This was subsequently updated as new discoveries were made.61 This model complemented his earlier topographical work in mapping the site. As well as ensuring more effective controls over publication of the excavations, Fiorelli introduced a more systematic approach to excavation as a whole. Whereas previous excavations had been dotted about the site, Fiorelli introduced the practice of following the line of the roads, and of connecting different parts of the site.62 This method was not necessarily the inspiration of Fiorelli himself, with Latapie advocating a similar approach

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as early as 1776.63 The crucial difference by the 1860s, however, was that the will to implement such a procedure was now present. Many of Fiorelli’s reforms were the culmination of a gradual process, fulfilling proposals made by the 1848 commission. For example, Pompeii now finally received its own Antiquarium.64 Fiorelli’s reforms were practical responses to problems encountered in administering the site and Museum, namely how to pursue excavation and document it, and how to arrange the collections in the Museum. He tackled the problem of what to do with the volcanic debris removed during the digging by introducing a train for removing it from the site.65 This was a marked improvement upon previous practice, which had been to dump debris elsewhere among the ruins. He also made regular use of photography in documenting the progress of excavations.66 In this way, he built upon the adoption of the new technique of photography promoted as early as 1853 by Principe di San Giorgio as a means of recording the site, embedding it more systematically as a means of documenting discoveries during excavation.67 Photographer Giorgio Sommer collaborated with Fiorelli over many years to create a photographic account of the site, producing an impression of a well-maintained and organized site.68 His importance was recognized in the Baedeker travel guide: ‘Under the able superintendence of M(r) Fiorelli, instead of the former predatory operations, a regular plan has been adopted according to which the ruins are systematically explored and carefully preserved, thus producing highly satisfactory results.’69 In 1866, Fiorelli established a School of Archaeology at Pompeii, which lasted until 1875, when the establishment of a national Italian school of archaeology superseded it. The impetus for the School came from Fiorelli himself, who gained the support of King Victor Emmanuel II on a visit to Pompeii. It was not popular in other academic circles since Fiorelli bypassed both the university and ministry structures in setting it up. His aim in establishing the School was not to create a training system that would parallel and rival that already provided by the University. Instead, he had perceived that one of the main problems faced by Pompeii was the lack of professionally trained workers who were skilled in practical aspects of archaeology, such as restoration and the description of finds. It is perhaps a reflection of this that only one of the students from this School, Eduardo Brizio, who was appointed to the chair of archaeology at Bologna in 1876, rose to the top of the academic ladder.70 By contrast, three of the leading Pompeian scholars in the later nineteenth century, who became directors of the site or of Naples Museum – Michele Ruggiero, Giulio De Petra, and Antonio Sogliano – were all trained in the School.71 Fiorelli’s revival of a journal for the excavations at Pompeii (Giornale degli scavi di Pompei) provided an outlet in which the students could publish their work. Despite a tendency to hail Fiorelli as a hero of Unification and to run the risk of over-emphasizing his real contribution to the study of Pompeii by attributing to him some innovations that had really already been in practice,

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it is hard to exaggerate his impact upon the history of Pompeii. The honours granted to him in his lifetime – a marble bust in the Museum’s coin room, a gold medallion issued in his honour by the Accademia dei Lincei, and a bronze bust in Pompeii’s forum – reflected his contemporaries’ recognition of his contribution to local and national archaeology alike.72 Whether primarily political pragmatist, administrator or archaeological innovator, Fiorelli arguably remains the individual who has had the greatest impact upon the way in which Pompeii has been both excavated and perceived, becoming integral to the project of creating an Italian national identity. Establishing a sound scientific and academic basis for the excavations was inseparable from the progressive ideals that were being espoused by the newly unified Italian nation.

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5 The Popularization of Pompeii

The time which the traveller devotes to the ruins must depend on his own inclination. A superficial inspection may be accomplished in 4–5 hrs.; but in order to summon up from these mutilated walls a tolerably accurate picture of ancient life, frequent and prolonged visits and patient observation are indispensable. The enthusiasm called forth by the discovery of Pompeii and the fascination attaching to the name are calculated to raise the expectations of the non-archaeologist to too high a pitch. The remains are simply the bare ruins of a town destroyed by fire, which have been extricated from the rubbish accumulated during seventeen centuries. BAEDEKER [1880] Italy. Handbook for Travellers1 During the nineteenth century, fundamental changes in the social composition of those who were able to visit the site, as well as technological advances in how visitors could engage with it in new ways, began to transform visitors’ experiences. Fundamental shifts in attitudes towards the ancient population of Pompeii and towards reconstruction and conservation, which took part in the second half of the nineteenth century, are explored in Chapters Six and Seven. This chapter considers not only how visitors came to Pompeii in increasing numbers, but also how Pompeii itself began to travel, reaching wider audiences through paintings, novels, photographs and public spectacles. It traces how Pompeii became a household name in Europe and the United States of America during the course of the nineteenth century. The site became open to anyone who could make the journey to the Bay of Naples, whilst people’s imaginations were engaged both by popular depictions of Pompeii in fiction and by its representation in dramatic spectacles performed to mass audiences in London and the USA. During this century, Pompeii began to eclipse Herculaneum as the most famous of the Vesuvian cities, whilst responses to the site focused less on an aesthetic appreciation of its art and more upon the emotions stirred up by the story of its destruction. As well as playing a part in improving archaeological documentation, as briefly touched on in Chapter Four, the new technology of photography allowed visitors to shape their memories of visiting the site, 75

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with some individuals purchasing postcards in order to generate their own individualized experience of the site and its representation. Pompeii was no longer reserved for members of the nobility and their entourages. Visiting the site itself still, of course, remained well beyond the means of the vast majority of people, but by the end of the nineteenth century, images and impressions of Pompeii were entertaining the masses.

From Grand Tour to tourists Reforms introduced by Fiorelli formalized and consolidated changes in the social profile of visitors coming to Pompeii that had begun some decades earlier. On 18 September 1862, a ministerial decree introduced a ticketing system for entry, effectively opening the site to a wide cross-section of society.2 Although the site had gradually become accessible to an increasingly wide range of visitors since Napoleonic times, this step marked a fundamental shift in ideology, as the former kingdom’s antiquities became public property. Since the mid-1830s the new urban middle class at Naples had increasingly participated in activities that had previously been the preserve of aristocrats, such as attending the opera, but it was only after 1860 that the widening cultural interests of this social group were catered for more fully.3 The decades following the Bourbon restoration also brought a rapid surge of foreign visitors, but this trend became even more marked with the first Italian tours of Thomas Cook being launched in 1864, which included an optional one-and-a-half day excursion to Naples, devoting a single day to visiting both Pompeii and Vesuvius, and half a day to exploring Naples.4 Visitors came from new geographical backgrounds too. Regular passage across the Atlantic by steamship brought ever more American travellers to Italy from the 1830s onwards. By 1870, the English novelist Arthur Sketchley (the pseudonym of George Rose) derived great fun from sending his illeducated, lower-class Mrs Brown to Pompeii on her ‘Grand Tour’. Her appetite for the visit is whetted by a gentleman reading to her on the journey there ‘all about ’ow they was all smothered in hashes in a hinstant while a settin’ at dinner, as is proved thro’ a-findin’ the werry dishes on the tables, as they ’adn’t ’ad time for to clear away’.5 The increase in the number and diversity of tourists created a new market for guidebooks. During the Bourbon eras, visitors had depended upon social connections for their accommodation in Naples and were shown around by friends like Hamilton or Gell, whilst royal visitors would be escorted by the Director of the site. One of the earliest works purporting to be a practical guide was written by Domenico Romanelli, Prefect of the Royal Library at Naples. Dedicated to Caroline Murat, Viaggio a Pompei, a Pesto e di ritorno a Ercolano was published in 1811. It offered an account of an actual journey begun on 30 May 1810. Romanelli explains that he has been motivated to write the book by his failure to find any detailed description of the sites as a

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whole rather than of individual monuments. On arriving at Pompeii, Romanelli structures his account as a description of his visit starting at the ‘Villa of Diomedes’ and ending at the partly reburied Amphitheatre, explaining architecture, transcribing inscriptions, incorporating learned debate about how to interpret the remains and alluding to items in the museum at Portici. The tone is discursive, including conversations with an unnamed foreigner and a woman whom he happens to encounter at the ‘Herculaneum Gate’. By mutual consent, they continue their tour together, which allows for lively discussion of evidence for women’s lives in Pompeii and how spectators in the theatre coped with adverse weather conditions, given the lack of a roof.6 The overall length of the account – some 190 pages – means that it still did not cater for the general visitor. By the 1840s, increasing numbers of independent travellers started to arrive at the site. In 1846, a correspondent for the Illustrated London News describes on his arrival at the site being ‘mobbed by guides’, who persisted with him throughout his visit.7 The American journalist Nathaniel Parker Willis who wrote ‘letters from abroad’ for the New York Mirror in 1833 likewise describes being met at the entrance to the site by a guide who, to judge from the muddled remarks of Willis, may have repeated stories of dubious authority about the finds. We read of ‘the skeletons of sixty men, supposed to be soldiers, who, in the severity of Roman discipline, dared not fly, and perished at their post’, the mistaken view that the ‘House of Sallust’ actually belonged to the Roman historian of that name, along with the dramatic tale of the population of Pompeii having been seated in the amphitheatre at the time of eruption, a garbled version of Cassius Dio’s account of Pompeii’s destruction ‘while its population was sitting in the theatre’.8 Fiorelli regularized the number, payment, uniform, and duties of the guards, but the quality of information given to visitors did not necessarily also improve.9 All of these visitors generated a need for travel guides that included practical information on topics like travel and hotels, as well as notes on the sights. In 1815, Henry Coxe celebrated the re-opening of the Continent to English travellers by publishing A Picture of Italy being a Guide to the Antiquities and Curiosities of that Classical and Interesting Country.10 Its subtitle reflects the new style of information on offer – containing sketches of manners, society, and customs: and an itinerary of distances in posts and English miles, best inns, &c.: with a minute description of Rome, Florence, Naples, & Venice, and their environs: to which are prefixed directions to travellers, and dialogues in English, French, & Italian – but the need for cheap mass-produced guidebooks designed for the ‘general traveller’ was primarily met first by Murray’s guidebooks published from 1836. These were aimed at the new market of middle-class tourists. The other main popular series of guidebooks was published by Baedeker, whose comments warning tourists against too high expectations of Pompeii are cited at the beginning of the chapter. Both Murray’s and Baedeker’s guides went through

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frequent revisions and new editions, with Murray producing nine and Baedeker twelve editions by the end of the century, necessitated by the speed of new discoveries being made at Pompeii throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. Such guidebooks directed how tourists should respond to what they saw upon their journeys, encouraging visitors to engage in imaginative fancies as well as historical enquiry. The first edition of Murray’s guidebook includes quotations from the poem Pompeii by Robert Stephen Hawker, which he had recited at Encaenia in the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford on graduating in 1827, having won the Newdigate Prize for poetry: ‘How sadly echoing to the stranger’s tread/ These walls respond, like voices from the dead’.11 This approach reflects the fact that visitors wanted to make connections between Pompeii and the modern world: Nathaniel Parker Willis, for instance, reflected that a system of stepping stones similar to Pompeii was to be found in Baltimore and felt that the immediacy of visiting the Villa of Diomedes encouraged the feeling ‘as if the living inhabitant would step from some corner and welcome you’.12 The advent of photography had an impact upon visitors’ experiences of the site.13 The earliest photographs of the site were taken by Alexander John Ellis in 1841, who took scenic views similar to those that had previously been captured in paintings. Shortly afterwards, the Rev. George Wilson Bridges in 1846 was given permission by the king to take photographs anywhere in the kingdom. He presented calotype images to Ferdinand II, including one of the Amphitheatre now in the Alinari collection.14 The emergence of professional photographers resulted in an important commercial development, namely the production and sale of photographs and postcard books. Early examples of these consisted of hand-coloured lithographs put together into souvenir albums by the Majolino company of Naples. These albums, Pompei: Peintures murales: Souvenir de Pompei, included images reminiscent of the engraved plates in Le antichità, presenting paintings as individual artworks: now these were available for purchase by anyone, democratizing the images. In around 1873, the Neapolitan photographer Michele Amodio started to produce photographic albums as souvenirs (Souvenirs de Pompéi), which were then presented in the 1878 Paris Exhibition. At roughly the same time, the Alinari brothers based in Florence had accumulated fifty Pompeian scenes in their catalogue. The symbiosis of archaeology and tourism via photography emerged most clearly in the work of Giorgio Sommer, who collaborated with Fiorelli for some years, developing a distinctive ‘scientific’ style, eschewing the picturesque mode which had been dominant until then: ‘While his competitors constructed deep pictorial spaces and suggestive atmospheres, Sommer made ancient monuments look like mere objects, letting his images lie flat on the photographic paper’.15 Sommer also moved away from reproducing in photographic medium the views that had long been familiar to viewers from drawings and paintings. Some of his photographs, for instance, present collections of labelled objects in Naples Museum (Figure 5.1). The scientific

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FIGURE 5.1 Giorgio Sommer, surgical instruments in Naples Museum, https:// commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sommer,_Giorgio_(1834-1914)_-_n._11141_-_ Museo_di_Napoli_-_Strumenti_di_chirurgia.jpg. Alamy image JG780J.

flavour of Sommer’s photographs appealed to tourists, resulting in immense commercial success for his output. The administrative organization of the site encouraged the selling of such mementoes: although guides to the site were included in the price of the entrance ticket, they were permitted to make additional income for themselves by selling photographic souvenirs to visitors rather than by receiving tips.16 This first makes its appearance in the fifth edition of Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in Southern Italy in 1865, which informs its readers that the guides ‘are forbidden, under pain of dismissal, to accept any gratuity, so that the only way the visitor can show his sense of their attention will be to purchase from them the photographic views of the ruins which they are permitted to sell’.17 In this way, technical and administrative changes helped to transform the ways in which people were encouraged to capture memories of their visits to the site, bringing to an end official sanction for visitors taking home a real piece of antiquity.

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Eruptive landscapes Images of Vesuvius erupting were a popular theme among artists during the period when the volcano was at its most active in modern times. Starting with a large explosive eruption in 1631, frequent eruptions followed the accession of the Bourbons in 1737, continuing into the nineteenth century and ceasing only in 1944. Many visitors climbed up to the crater, even during an eruption, and artists painted dramatic scenes of eruptions, contemporary and historical. One of the richest men in France, the art patron Pierre Jacques Onésyme Bergeret de Grancourt (1715–85) commissioned Pierre-Jacques Volaire (1729–99) to paint an eruption by moonlight for his country residence, the Château de Nègrepelisse in the south of France. Having moved to Naples in 1767, Volaire based his work upon his own observations of the volcano, made at close hand when accompanying de Grancourt on an excursion to the crater’s edge on 23 April 1774 while the volcano was erupting. De Grancourt recorded that he was pleased with the way in which Volaire had succeeded in capturing the horror of Vesuvius.18 Volaire’s paintings of Vesuvius were among the earliest to reflect contemporary obsession with ideas of the ‘sublime’, as illustrated by the awesome spectacle of the erupting volcano.19 Many scenes accordingly concentrated upon the natural phenomenon of the eruption itself, reducing human spectators to tiny figures on the margins. These figures might be contemporary observers in modern dress or historical tableaux. The death of Pliny the Elder on the shore at Stabiae featured in Jacob More’s Mount Vesuvius in Eruption (1780) and in Pierre Henri de Valenciennes’ The Eruption of Vesuvius, August 24 79 A.D. (1813).20 Sometimes it remained ambiguous whether the spectators depicted were dressed in ancient or modern attire. Joseph Wright of Derby found that volcanic canvases were so profitable that he produced at least twenty-seven of them following his stay in Naples from 2 October to 11 November 1774. Even though he did not witness a major eruption during this period, he climbed up the volcano during eruptive activity, possibly accompanied by Sir William Hamilton, to make sketches on the spot. Nevertheless, his canvases were not documentary records of specific events, as can be seen in the artistic licence by which he included Ischia and Procida in one scene painted c. 1776–80. These islands would not in reality have been visible, but emphasized the contrast between the fury of the volcano and the calm sea.21 Nor did he generally reflect on the human cost of eruptions, focusing instead upon portraying the dramatic violence of nature. These scenes of natural pyrotechnics were complemented by other canvases by Wright depicting firework displays at the Castel Sant’ Angelo in Rome (1774/5). As he commented, ‘the one is the greatest effect of Nature the other of Art that I suppose can be’. One such pair of canvases was bought by Catherine II of Russia for 500 guineas.22

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Other paintings reflected the contemporary obsession with geological study and scientific interest in Vesuvius. Hamilton was a major proponent of this approach. In his enthusiasm, he ascended the volcano dozens of times, assembled a geological collection, sent an eyewitness description of the 1767 eruption in a letter to the Royal Society in 1768 and also included detailed notes in Observations on Mount Vesuvius, Mount Etna, and other Volcanos (1772) and Campi Phlegraei (1776), a volume remarkable for its lavish illustration with scientifically accurate hand-coloured engravings. This spirit of scientific enquiry emerges from a landscape painted by the court painter Jakob Philipp Hackert (c. 1774–5), which represents a group of individuals observing a lava flow, painted in a realistic fashion that is quite different from the ‘sublime’ dramatic views of other artists (Plate 2).23 A major artistic shift in the nineteenth century saw new prominence given to the human tragedy of the eruption.24 One of the earliest paintings depicting the eruption of 79 in which human suffering is the focus of the canvas is by Joseph Franque, who produced Scene during the eruption of Vesuvius in 1826 (Plate 3).25 Whereas earlier canvases had featured Vesuvius erupting, Franque only hints at the volcano in the background. Instead, the viewer’s attention is drawn to four figures, interpreted as those of a mother, her two daughters and an infant. It was displayed first in Naples and then at the Salon in Paris in 1828. The overall effect is one of confusion as one daughter has tumbled out of their chariot whilst the infant and other daughter cling desperately to their mother who is already overwhelmed. The female bodies are exposed and the rear of a horse is caught bolting away from the chaos. The depiction is not entirely sympathetic, since a casket of jewels, a mirror, and lyre lie just above the prostrate body. This suggests a moralizing message critical of the women for delaying their attempt to escape by too much concern for taking material goods with them, rather than being satisfied by the rings and earrings they already wore. The painting dramatizes a scene inspired by the discovery in 1812 of three bodies, along with some gold jewellery. The canvas is unusual for its time in taking its cue directly from archaeological evidence, even though no sign was found of a chariot, which has been added for dramatic effect by the painter.26 Franque’s change of focus foreshadowed the massive scene The Last Day of Pompeii – more than 15 feet by 21 feet – painted in oil on canvas in 1833 by Karl Briullov (1799–1852) (Plate 4).27 It depicts dramatic vignettes of twenty-seven figures in their attempts to protect themselves from falling debris and to escape during the eruption, as statues topple, buildings collapse and rearing horses add to the confusion. In the centre lies a fallen mother who has dropped her treasure chest, her young child reaching out to her. Several of the figures are represented nobly trying to protect those weaker than themselves, whilst other figures attempt to salvage their valued possessions. One figure carrying paint-pots on his head is even a self-portrait of Briullov himself. He had won a prize from the St Petersburg Society for the Encouragement of

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Artists to spend three years in Rome, arriving there in May 1823, and was expected to produce a historical canvas, but it was not until 1828 that he decided to adopt a Pompeian theme. The painting was first shown in his studio at Rome, where Sir Walter Scott sat and contemplated it for an hour. It was then shown at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan to great acclaim, before being chosen for display in the prestigious salon carré in the Louvre for the 1834 Salon, where it won a first-class medal in the most prestigious category, history painting. This was a remarkable achievement for a painter who had trained neither in France nor under a French instructor. The painting became famous, raising the status of Russian art to new prominence in Europe. Nikolai Gogol gave a ringing endorsement of the canvas in his Arabesques, essays on various aspects of art published in January 1835, picking out the way in which Briullov had characterized the many figures in the painting with their varied emotions: ‘He casts his figures forcefully with a hand such as only a powerful genius can wield: this crowd of people, caught at the moment of impact, expressing thousands of different feelings’. Though nameless, each figure’s image implies his or her story, such as ‘the mother who is no longer trying to escape and is unyielding to the entreaties of her son, whose requests the onlooker imagines he can hear’.28 Demidoff presented the painting to Nicholas I, who in turn donated it to the Academy of Fine Arts, whilst Briullov was celebrated with many distinctions on his return to Russia in 1835, inspiring Pushkin to start writing a poem about the destruction of Pompeii. Briullov had visited Pompeii in 1827, sketching the tombs outside the ‘Herculaneum Gate’ which appear as the recognizable background for his scene, writing to his brother that ‘I have copied this setting totally from reality, without taking away nor adding anything’.29 Despite this concern for visual accuracy, he included an anachronistic touch in representing an old man wearing a wooden Christian cross around his neck. In his painting, he eschewed the trend to include Pliny the Elder, creating a chaotic scene with multiple figures who evoke a whole range of emotions, from fear and apprehension to self-sacrifice and determination. The erupting volcano looms in the background, as lightning flashes and earth tremors add to the drama. Briullov’s new vision drew upon the opera L’ultimo giorno di Pompei by Giovanni Pacini, which was first performed at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples on 19 November 1825 and then over the next few years at Milan, Vienna, Rome, Paris, Venice and finally London in 1831. The opera combined archaeological reconstruction, initially using sets based upon the ‘House of Sallust’, the Forum, Street of Tombs and ‘House of Diomedes’, with a dramatic closing spectacle of the eruption. The performances were influential in bringing the inhabitants of Pompeii back to life, ending with a depiction of the eruption as a human catastrophe rather than as an awe-inspiring natural phenomenon. Together, the dramatic and creative works of Pacini and Briullov inspired a new appreciation of the site as an inhabited town rather than as artistic treasure trove, leading from the story of The Last Day to that of The Last Days of Pompeii.30

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The Last Days of Pompeii Briullov’s canvas was one of the inspirations behind Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s best-selling novel The Last Days of Pompeii, published in 1834.31 The author had viewed the painting in Milan before visiting Pompeii in November 1833, noting in his journal: ‘This picture is full of genius, imagination, and nature. . . . The statues toppling from a lofty gate have a crashing and awful effect. But the most natural touch is an infant in its mother’s arms:- her face impressed with a dismay and terror which partake of the sublime; the child wholly unconscious of the dread event . . . This exception to the general horror of the scene is full of pathos’.32 The novel marked another transition, from the artistic representations of nameless individuals in the paintings of Franque and Briullov to the peopling of Pompeii with individuals who were not only given names but characters, and whose story was told not just in relation to their last moments during the eruption.33 In brief, the novel relates the love story of two Greeks – Glaucus and Ione – and the plots against them by Arbaces (the sinister priest of Isis) and the jealous Julia. By various plot twists, Glaucus ends up accused of having murdered Ione’s brother and is about to face a lion in the Amphitheatre as punishment when the eruption interrupts. The blind Nydia, despite her unrequited love for Glaucus, saves both Glaucus and Ione since her disability allows her to guide them to safety through the streets without having to see her way. Ione and Glaucus escape from the eruption by sea, settle in Athens and convert to Christianity, whilst Nydia drowns herself. The action takes place against detailed descriptions of the buildings and life in Pompeii, with Glaucus’ house modelled upon the ‘House of the Tragic Poet’ (VI.viii.5), which had only just been uncovered in 1824/5. BulwerLytton derived much of his archaeological detail from the publications by Sir William Gell – his Pompeiana: the topography, edifices, and ornaments of Pompeii produced in 1817–19 in collaboration with the architect John Gandy, and his Pompeiana: the topography, edifices, and ornaments of Pompeii, the result of excavations since 1819 (1832). Bulwer-Lytton acknowledged his debt to Gell by dedicating the novel to him, prompting Gell to write on 10 March 1835: I was highly flattered in my old age by Bulwers [sic] dedication of his Pompeii to me & think the Book itself is as well fitted to the place as circumstances permitted. I own I consider the Tragic Poets house since I read the novel, as that of Glaucus & have peopled the other places with Bulwers inhabitants in my own mind which I believe is a proof that his Tale is judiciously applied to the locality.34 Bulwer-Lytton’s narrator claims privileged knowledge of ‘the disburied house of the Athenian Glaucus’, which has been ‘named in mistake’ by antiquaries as ‘The House of the Dramatic Poet’, but he interrupts the story with intrusive

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comments akin to those one might read in a guidebook: ‘Advancing up the vestibule you enter an atrium, that when first discovered was rich in paintings, which in point of expression would scarcely disgrace a Rafaele. You may see them now transplanted to the Neapolitan Museum: they are still the admiration of connoisseurs’, later referring to ‘the beautiful work of Sir William Gell’ in support of his description of another part of the house.35 Footnotes refer to objects which the author had seen in the Museo Borbonico.36 Gell was a leading figure in Neapolitan society, establishing his reputation as an expert on Pompeii by conducting visitors, including Bulwer-Lytton himself, around the site and by publishing these guidebooks. Lady Blessington’s journal gives a good impression of his convivial character, even though she also suggests that she would have liked some time on her own to immerse herself in the atmosphere of the site: ‘Glad as I was to profit by the savoir of Sir William Gell, whose acquaintance with Pompeii and its antiquities renders him the best cicerone in Italy, yet I could have wished to ramble alone through this City of the Dead, which appealed so forcibly to my imagination, conjuring up its departed inhabitants, instead of listening to erudite details of their dwellings’.37 Gell did not claim to be either historian or antiquarian, but was the first to offer a detailed account of the site in English, foreshadowing the development during the nineteenth century of an archaeological rather than antiquarian approach to Pompeii.38 His illustrations combined accuracy and imagination: he presented measured ground plans, which he had made in situ using the recently invented camera lucida, but also included reconstructions of furnished domestic interiors populated with figures dressed in Roman attire, such as ‘Restoration of the Atrium in the House of Sallust’ or ‘Poet’s House Restored’ (Figure 5.2).39 What had initially appeared to generate disappointment in Pompeii – its small scale and lack of grandeur – now contributed to a sense of connection between present visitor and past inhabitant. The complete octavo edition of Gell’s first guidebook was relatively expensive (£5 12s), however, with a small initial print-run of 500, so it did not yet cater for the mass market as the Murray and Baedeker series later did.40 By the time that Bulwer-Lytton toured Pompeii, visitors could enjoy a tour of a town rather than of two disconnected parts of the site (Theatre District and Street of Tombs). His novel about the daily, domestic lives of Pompeii’s inhabitants was made possible by recent archaeological developments, especially as the clearance of the Forum had created a joinedup site. It is no surprise that the influence of Gell’s guidance both in person and in print along with the vivid scene painted by Briullov inspired BulwerLytton to reanimate Pompeii. In addition to taking his cue from the surviving archaeological remains, Bulwer-Lytton took inspiration from the skeletons found on site, in his final chapter explicitly identifying his characters with specific remains. A skeleton with an axe found in the Temple of Isis became Calenus (another priest of Isis), trying to fight his way out of the chamber, whilst the cluster of bodies in the ‘Villa of Diomedes’ now included his

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FIGURE 5.2 W. Gell, Pompeiana (1832) Vol.2, plate 52, ‘Poet’s House Restored’.

characters Julia and Diomed: ‘The sand, consolidated by damps, had taken the forms of the skeletons as in a cast; and the traveller may yet see the impression of a female neck and bosom of young and round proportions – the trace of the fated Julia’ (see also Chapter 6 below).41 Bulwer-Lytton’s novel went on to influence the ways in which visitors experienced the site. In a letter that Bulwer-Lytton received in 1836 from John Auldjo, a friend of Gell, who had arranged for the novel to be translated into Italian, he was informed about how visitors to Pompeii now viewed the site through the lens of the novel: Will it not gratify you to know that people begin to ask for Ione’s house, and that there are disputes about which was Julia’s room in Diomed’s villa? Pompeii was truly a city of the dead; there were no fancied spirits hovering o’er its remains, but now you have made poetical its very air, you have created a new feeling in its visitors. In the dusk, wandering through its deserted streets, the rapt antiquarian startles at the rustling of the vine leaves and fancies he sees the shade of Arbaces the Egyptian beneath the luxuriant festoons; or as the peasant girl tramps her way home, singing her evening song, pictures to himself Nydia, feeling her way through the Forum and crying, ‘come, buy my flowers’.42 The novel also loomed large in guidebooks to the site. In 1869, George Augustus Sala’s guidebook asserted,

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The novel so exquisitely and so truthfully portrays the city, that the houses of Glaucus and Pansa, the theatre, and the gladiators’ wine-shop, have become as indelibly impressed on the readers’ minds as the forms of the dead Pompeians on the hot ashes with which they were stifled. Bulwer has made Pompeii his own; the Last Days are the best possible guidebook to the disinterred city.43 By its second edition in 1869, the Baedeker guide too noted that the ‘House of the Tragic Poet’ ‘is represented by Bulwer in his “Last Days of Pompeii” as the dwelling of Glaucus’.44 This tendency culminated with N. Scotti’s Three hours in Pompeii: A real and practical guide book compiled in harmony with the description given by Bulwer Lytton in his work entitled The Last Days of Pompeii, published in Naples in 1907.45 Bulwer-Lytton himself encouraged the blurring of fiction and reality, displaying in his study at Knebworth House (Hertfordshire) two skulls from Pompeii which were purportedly those of his characters Arbaces and Calenus.46 The interweaving of novel and ruins continued in visitors’ memories after they had left the site. From the late 1860s until the early twentieth century, the Leipzig publisher Tauchnitz produced unbound editions of the novel (as well as of other novels featuring Italian cities, including George Eliot’s Romola set in Florence and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Marble Faun in Rome), allowing readers to create their own ‘extra-illustrated’ copies, before the practice of printed illustrated copies became common. Buyers could purchase the novel in loose-leaf format and then insert photographs or postcards of their choice within the novel before getting it bound. These images could be bought as a set from booksellers or photographers in Rome or Florence, but the format allowed readers to choose where to insert their selected images and what type of binding they wanted. Readers could individualize their memories of the site as it featured in the novel. The purchasing of photographs from the Alinari brothers (based in Florence) in particular and the Italian binding of the books show that the creation of a personalized extra-illustrated copy of The Last Days of Pompeii could form part of the whole experience of travelling in Italy.47 Despite its insistence upon the accuracy of its archaeological details, the novel was not just concerned with the Pompeian past but, like BulwerLytton’s literary output more generally, reflected current literary tastes: its plot of star-crossed lovers included elements of the gothic which were popular at the time, including a witch, poisoning and exotic rites.48 Like his other novels, it encompassed moral and social problems, a genre characterized during his lifetime as ‘philosophical romance’. An article in the Illustrated London News in 1846 summarized his literary output in the following way: ‘His fictions are the means of working out an end or purpose – some moral or social problem – and that purpose he never forgets’.49 The author used the Pompeian setting as a mirror of contemporary society, Glaucus’ house being described, for instance, as akin to the house ‘of a single man in Mayfair’.

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Bulwer-Lytton encouraged his readers to see contemporary resonances in his description of Pompeian society, ‘a pleasure-seeking aristocratic class poised on the verge of extinction’.50 In this, he was part of a broader trend in Victorian London to see Pompeii, and the Roman Empire more generally, as relevant to understanding contemporary society.51 It is this combination of the literary penchants and social concerns of the Victorian era, presented through the lens of historical fiction, that made the novel so popular during the nineteenth century but so less enticing to tastes today. Bulwer-Lytton’s novel was immediately popular, according to his friends. An eruption of Vesuvius in August 1834 also provided an unintended marketing boost. Lady Blessington wrote to him on 13 October 1834 that ‘It is in everyone’s hands. Hookham told me that “he knows of no work so much called for” (I quote his words), and the other circulating libraries give the same report’.52 Sales figures speak for themselves: translated into Italian, French and German, more than twenty-five editions of the novel were issued during the nineteenth century. Even so, it cannot have had a mass impact upon the reading public in general until the novel went out of copyright in 1880, heralding six-penny editions.53 In the meantime, the plot and characters of The Last Days of Pompeii took on a life of their own outside the pages of the book, being adapted for stage (as explored below), and inspiring artworks, such as the sculpture ‘Nydia, the blind flower girl of Pompeii’, which American sculptor Randolph Rogers produced in 167 examples in 1855–56.54 New Yorker Eliot Gregory (self-styled ‘The Idler’) made caustic remarks upon ‘American Society in Italy’ in 1899, noting how The tourists also developed a taste for large marble statues, “Nydia, the Blind Girl of Pompeii” (people read Bulwer, Byron, and the Bible then) being in such demand that I knew one block in lower Fifth Avenue that possessed seven blind Nydias, all life-size, in white marble, – a form of decoration about as well adapted to those scanty front parlors as a steam engine or a carriage and a pair would have been.’ He went on to observe, though, that ‘I fear Bulwer’s heroine is at a discount now.55 Nevertheless, between the novel’s publication in 1834 and the end of the century, Bulwer-Lytton enabled the development of a wider cultural phenomenon, whereby the eruption of Vesuvius and destruction of Pompeii were offered for popular entertainment.

Pompeii! The Ancient City will be destroyed again tonight The spectacle of Vesuvius erupting was visualized not just in dramatic oil paintings, but it was also staged for entertainment. The earliest such

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spectacles were private affairs for Europe’s nobility. Prince Leopold III Friedrich Franz of Anhalt-Dessau (1740–1817) had visited Naples in 1765 as guest of Hamilton, and had been so impressed by Vesuvius that he built a 17metre-high artificial volcano on a rock island created on the lake at Wörlitz. There he staged eruptions after dark with artificial lava flow, a waterfall illuminated with red lighting and fireworks.56 Such spectacles were not historicizing dramas about the destruction of Pompeii, but reflected contemporary fascination with the eruptions taking place during the 1770s, recreating a ‘sublime’ sensory experience of an eruption without the danger.57 The distinction between what might be regarded as the high art of oil painting and popular entertainment became blurred in spectacles illustrating the destruction of Pompeii. The sizeable oil canvas, The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum by John Martin (1789–1854), was commissioned by Richard Grenville (1776–1839) in the year that he was created the 1st Duke of Buckingham and Chandos (1822) (Plate 5). It was first exhibited at the Royal Academy and then as a diorama in the Egyptian Hall at Piccadilly that same year, along with other scenes from around the world. The painting depicts the shore at Stabiae, where survivors are struggling to gain dry land having escaped from the eruption by boat, but is dominated by Vesuvius erupting in the background. Martin included a Descriptive Catalogue of the Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum with other Pictures now exhibit ing at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly alongside it, identifying archaeological elements and the figures in the foreground. Contemporary viewers like Joseph Jean Pichot were impressed by his manipulation of light in the painting.58 In contrast to other artists, Martin had not travelled to the Bay of Naples, but drew upon ancient and contemporary literature for his theme, echoing the pyrotechnic displays that had begun to become popular. Exhibitions such as these gave a taste of the Bay of Naples to those who could not afford to travel there.59 At the more sober end of the market were shows like the View of the Ruins of the City of Pompeii and the Surrounding Country, presented in 1823–24 at Robert Burford’s Panorama on the Strand. This was based upon Edwin Atherstone’s poem The Last Days of Herculaneum (1821) and presented itself as an accurate historical depiction, along with souvenir booklets and lectures. Popular appetite for this theme is illustrated by the fact that Burford continued to offer similar viewings at his new Panorama in Leicester Square. In 1845, the public could visit for the cost of one shilling a ‘Description of a view of the city and bay of Naples by moonlight, with an eruption of Mount Vesuvius’ in one part of the building, whilst other foreign sights – Baden Baden, ‘the queen of the spas in Germany’ and ‘Hong Kong, the British settlement in China’ – were exhibited elsewhere.60 As the demand continued, a further Panorama of the Ruins of Pompeii also opened towards the end of 1848.61 Theatrical entertainments took their cue from Bulwer-Lytton’s novel, with adaptations appearing on stage within three months of its publication, such as Edward Fitzball’s The Last Days of Pompeii: or, The Blind Girl of Thessaly

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(1835). Some of these adaptations offered irreverent adaptations of the novel designed for mass appreciation, such as J. B. Buckstone’s melodrama, The Last Days of Pompeii; or, Seventeen Hundred Years Ago, which ran for sixtyfour nights at the Adelphi Theatre in 1834/5. This changed the focus of the novel in favour of gladiatorial spectacle. Such theatrical performances introduced the novel and its characters to much larger audiences beyond its initial readership, given that attending the theatre was much cheaper than purchasing the novel. As many as 50,000–100,000 individuals may have watched these performances during the first year following its publication alone.62 Robert Reece’s Very Last Days of Pompeii (1850) was a burlesque, performed in 1872 at the Vaudeville Theatre, on the Strand. Given the liberties taken with adapting his novel for the stage, it is no surprise that Bulwer-Lytton took up the cause of Copyright Law in Parliament. His characters captured public imagination, even taking on life of their own, appearing in paintings such as Glaucus and Nydia by Alma-Tadema (1857), [Plate 9] or in Paul Falconer Poole’s Escape of Glaucus and Ione (1860). Although some spectacles professed to present some kind of narrative around the destruction of Pompeii, others were unashamedly popular entertainments only loosely connected with any historical content. They presented opportunities for the dramatic and ‘novel and startling’ impressions, noted in the Illustrated London News in commenting on the Promenade Concerts at Covent Garden, where presentations of the destruction of Pompeii ‘may not probably suit the taste of a Handelian or Bachite’, but whose ‘mysterious, unexpected chorus, and the thunder and lightning’ were guaranteed to thrill audiences.63 Pyrotechnical displays featuring eruptions of Vesuvius were repeatedly presented at the Surrey Zoological Gardens in 1837–38, 1846 and 1852, appealing to the popular desire for spectacular innovation.64 With the popularity of Bulwer-Lytton’s novel came further elaborations designed by the British entrepreneur James Pain, who presented spectacular pyrodramas on the theme of The Last Days of Pompeii from the 1880s (Figure 5.3).65 These included a show in 1885 at Manhattan Beach, New

FIGURE 5.3 B. J. Falk (c. 1903), No. 1 of Pain’s Spectacle, Coney Island. United States Coney Island New York, c. 1903. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.

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York; in 1888 and (in a new version) 1898 at the Alexandra Palace Theatre in Muswell Hill (North London); and at the Crystal Palace in 1910. By 1891, further performances had been viewed in pleasure gardens of Boston, Detroit, St Louis, Minneapolis, St Paul, Kansas City, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and Peoria, Illinois. Such spectacles attracted audiences in their thousands, with cheap entry prices: it cost 50 cents to attend the extravaganza on Manhattan Beach, as advertised in Harper’s Weekly on 25 July 1885.66 These shows catered to popular tastes: events like gladiatorial fights, chariot races, swimming, dancing girls, acrobatics and pyrotechnics were performed by a cast of hundreds, all staged upon a vast set across a lake (representing the Bay of Naples). An advertisement in the Minneapolis Tribune on 28 August 1890 proclaimed: ‘Pompeii! The Ancient City will be destroyed again tonight’, whilst a review in the same newspaper of that ‘Magnificent Spectacle of the Celebrated Historical Event’, makes clear that the novel of Bulwer-Lytton had inspired the spectacle. It featured characters like Arbaces, Ione and Glaucus from his pages and some aspects of the show purported to be historical in flavour (the dedication of a bath-house). Nevertheless, one highlight was four members of the Gilliott family performing some ‘extraordinary work on the bicycle and unicycle’. The reviewer commented in something of an understatement that these sports were ‘possibly of a more modern date than the old Roman ones’. The show concluded with a spectacular firework display and the destruction of the set’s buildings, which were hinged so as to collapse at the appropriate moment.67 Such performances adapted Pompeii to modern taste and made it accessible to the masses, including those who could not read about the site or did not choose to do so.68 Following London’s Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations in 1851, the Crystal Palace was moved from Hyde Park to Sydenham, where it opened in June 1854. Whereas the exhibition of 1851 had been publicly funded, the Sydenham project was supported by a group of shareholders, the Crystal Palace Company, who had a more historicizing vision than the original organizers, desiring to create a visual encyclopaedia of the world’s civilizations that could offer both entertainment and education. A series of courts illustrating the world’s art and architecture from ancient Egypt to the Renaissance were now included. In the words of a preview published in The Athenaeum a few months before the opening, these were ‘less significant, perhaps, in their moral meanings, but in form, embellishments, and contents far more rich and beautiful than the old’.69 One of these – the Pompeian Court – was originally intended to offer refreshments, but it was soon realized that a Pompeian room was not large enough for this purpose (Figure 5.4). BulwerLytton’s influence was clear, since the Pompeian Court was modelled in part upon the ‘House of the Tragic Poet’, an identification made clear at the entrance to the Court, where a reproduction of the ‘beware of the dog’ mosaic was seen (even though the general guidebook maintains that this is ‘the usual notice engraved on the threshold of these Roman houses’).70 Passages from the novel were duly included in the guidebook to the Court.71

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FIGURE 5.4 Stereoscopic photograph of The Pompeian Court, Crystal Palace by T. R. Williams, London c. 1850s. (Victoria & Albert Museum collection, acc. no.611939) ©Victoria and Albert Museum, London, https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/ O1044725/the-pompeian-court-crystal-palace-photograph-t-r-williams/.

Over the lifetime of the Crystal Palace, millions of visitors – many of whom would never visit Italy – had the opportunity to experience a Pompeian house in an interactive way. Over its first thirty years, two million visitors a year came to experience the sights of the Crystal Palace.72 As a reviewer commented in the Illustrated London News in 1855, ‘We now enter this model of an ancient dwelling, so real in appearance that one almost might fancy oneself in a villa home of our own day’.73 The Pompeian Court was designed by Digby Wyatt, who had made sketches at Pompeii, whilst facsimiles of original paintings were created under the direction of Giuseppe Abbate, an official draftsman at the excavations in Pompeii. It displayed electrotyped bronze statues, mosaic pools populated by fish in gold and silver and a library with papyrus scrolls. As also acknowledged in the guidebook, it was a composite design giving an impression of the most interesting features found in Vesuvian dwellings in general.74 Despite its authentic atmosphere, the Court stayed true to the spirit of the original 1851 exhibition in promoting British manufacturing, given that the atrium’s floor was produced by Minton (Staffordshire), bronzes by Elkington & Co. (Birmingham) and marble benches by the London Marble Working Company.75 The Pompeian Court was considered to have the great advantage of presenting a reconstruction of a Pompeian house that was easily comprehensible, avoiding the risk of the disappointment met by so many visitors to Pompeii itself who were unable to make sense of the ‘crumbling remains of the buried cities’.76 Bulwer-Lytton’s novel also contributed to less sensational forms of popular entertainment. At Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, a Pompeian Pavilion was opened in 1878. This contained cabinets that were top-lit with

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a peephole through which visitors could peer at scenes of Pompeian life, the ruins in their present state, and reconstructions. Scene 32, depicting ‘Glaucus in the arena of the Amphitheatre condemned to wrestle with a Lion’ was drawn directly from the novel. Some scenes displayed views of the Forum, temples and houses, whilst others reanimated the town with scenes of everyday life, such as a sacrifice, trial, election and gladiatorial combat. Although intended to entertain working-class audiences, the publication of a pamphlet by the Park’s commission, Description of Pompeian Ruins, Restorations, and Scenes Exhibited at the Pompeian Museum, Fairmount Park promotes further historical understanding.77 The pamphlet gave more information on the views on show, referring readers to a bibliography if they desired yet more detail. By the end of the nineteenth century, Pompeii was best known for its destruction by Vesuvius and for its domestic life. In 1884, it was possible for a sketch-writer recounting a trip to the site in All the Year Round to write breezily, Everyone knows what a Pompeian house is like. You may see one at the Crystal Palace, and this may serve you as a model to imagine half-a-score . . . I came into the Forum, where the pillars still lie prostrate, as when shattered by the earthquake which Arbaces, the magician, the friend of my schoolboyhood, was powerless to escape. They evoked a mental glimpse of Glaucus and Ione, lying stunned amid the ruins, until sweet Nydia, the blind girl, bravely came to their relief.78 Pompeii’s destruction had become a source of entertainment to spectators and of profit to impresarios. Increasingly, visitors to the site became emotionally engaged in the ruins because of the stories that had been elaborated around human remains (as explored in the next chapter) and thanks to Bulwer-Lytton’s novel, which had reintroduced named characters to the town. Given the prominent place of Pompeii in the public imagination of the nineteenth century, it is no surprise that the last days of Pompeii soon became prominent in the development of cinema, with one of the earliest films being Luigi Maggi’s Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei (1908), a twentyminute extravaganza with lavish sets, special effects and costumes.79 Adaptations of Bulwer-Lytton’s novel, reshaped to suit contemporary audiences, went on to become ‘the canonical narrative for Italian cinema’s representation of the Pompeian past in the twentieth century’.80

6 The People of Pompeii

We have visited Pompeii. A greater extent of the city has been dug out and laid open since I was there before, so that it has now much more the appearance of a town of the dead. You may ramble about and lose yourself in the many streets. Bulwer, too, has peopled its silence. I have been reading his book, and I have felt on visiting the place much more as if really it had been once full of stirring life, now that he has attributed names and possessors to its houses, passengers to its streets. Such is the power of the imagination. It can not only give ‘a local habitation and a name’ to the airy creations of the fancy and the abstract ideas of the mind, but it can put a soul into stones, and hang the vivid interest of our passions and our hopes upon objects otherwise vacant of name or sympathy. Not indeed that Pompeii could be such, but the account of its ‘Last Days’ has cast over it a more familiar garb, and peopled its desert streets with associations that greatly add to their interest. MARY SHELLEY [1844], Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842 and 18431

Between fact and fiction The finding of skeletons at Pompeii was a feature of the excavations almost from the very first day. The earliest report of the discovery of a skeleton, along with eighteen bronze coins and one silver coin, appears on 19 April 1748, less than a month after digging had commenced.2 Unlike other finds, such as the coins accompanying them, the human remains were not removed from the site, but were left where they were found. From early on, therefore, visitors to the site were confronted by these reminders of the tragedy that had made the excavation possible. These bones were not guarded as assiduously as other finds. Latapie reports how the bones left in the Villa of Diomedes had continually been reduced in number, as visitors took away a sample as a souvenir: ‘one sees at the entrance to the cellar on shelves a quantity of bones, which continually diminish because certain people want to take away a piece of them if they can, something which I didn’t fail to do, 93

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so as to own in my little museum a bone which is more than seventeen centuries old’.3 It would be wrong to deduce from this, however, that members of the royal court were not interested in the discovery of skeletons. In four letters sent to the king between 15 December 1761 and 21 September 1762, Tanucci reports the discovery by Alcubierre of various bone fragments and two skeletons, even though these finds are not also reported in the excavation reports transcribed by Fiorelli.4 One skeleton became the focus of attention following the visit of Emperor Joseph II on 7 April 1769.5 During the excavation in his presence of the ‘House of Joseph II’ (VIII.ii.39), a skeleton was ‘found’ next to a basin: in all likelihood, it had been ‘planted’ there in order to assure that the emperor would witness first-hand an exciting discovery.6 Although La Vega’s initial account of the discovery put more emphasis upon the artefacts found at the same time, this skeleton soon became the centre of attention. By 1776, Latapie identified the skeleton as perhaps being that of a slave in charge of the laundry, even though the room was actually part of a subterranean suite of private baths, whilst Hamilton, who had accompanied the emperor on his visit, also described the skeleton as belonging to a ‘washer-woman’ in his account of 1777. He added that she ‘waited for death with calm resignation, and true Roman fortitude, as the attitude of the skeleton really seems to indicate’ and he included an illustration of the room in his ‘Account of the discoveries at Pompeii’ which he sent to the Society of Antiquaries.7 A comparison with a modern photograph suggests that his illustration may be largely accurate (Figure 6.1).8 William Beckford (1760–1844) elaborated upon the scene in his epistolary travelogue Dreams, Waking Thoughts and Incidents, recounting his visit in November 1780. This work was ready for publication in 1783, but was suppressed and burned, with just five copies surviving, to be published in its entirety only in 1971. He describes the skeleton: ‘I should not forget to tell you, that the skeleton of the poor laundress (for so the antiquaries will have it), who was very diligently washing the bathing cloaths [sic], at the time of the eruption, was found lying in an attitude of the most resigned death, not far from the washing caldron’.9 This description is typical of the protoRomantic stance which Beckford took in his work, shifting between reality and dream-like fantasy, as he finds himself transported back to the time of the eruption, travelling on board the Elder Pliny’s ship towards Pompeii.10 At around the same time, an illustration based on Fragonard’s depiction of his own visit on 6 May 1774, published in Saint-Non’s Voyage pittoresque (1781), has the skeleton in the spotlight of a ray of sunshine, and captures the emotional responses of onlookers (Figure 6.2).11 In contrast to Hamilton’s illustration, which depicts the room and its contents without onlookers, Fragonard dramatizes the moment when visitors are confronted by the sight of the skeleton. His approach was later adopted by Angelo Testa (1824), who offered an imaginative reconstruction of the discovery of the skeleton during the visit of Joseph II (Figure 6.3).12 This illustration was printed in the

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FIGURE 6.1 William Hamilton (1777), ‘XIV. Account of the discoveries at Pompeii’, plate 9.

second volume of Mazois’ Ruines de Pompéi and was then reproduced in their authoritative guides to the site by Overbeck (1856) and Mau (1908). Overbeck stated that his aim in including it was to give an impression of how skeletons had been found. In this way, although he avoided repeating the story of the laundress, Overbeck still potentially misled readers into assuming that his illustration was a real rather than imaginative depiction of that moment.13 Mau later adapted the same image from Mazois (updating the appearance and attire of the visitors), offering a new interpretation of the room as a bakery (since an oven was located in it) and the skeleton as a man who had sought protection there, only to die of hunger.14 The illustrations by Hamilton, Fragonard and Testa all differ in the way they present the room’s architecture, whilst Latapie, Hamilton, Beckford and Mau all chose to build a story around the skeleton. Such stories were fictional imaginings, with no attempt being made to analyse the skeleton, something that is not surprising for the eighteenth century, but is also typical of the way in which Pompeii’s skeletons were largely ignored as a source of historical evidence until towards the end of the twentieth century (see below). Nor was it even necessary for a skeleton to be preserved for visitors’ imaginations to be stirred.15 On 12 December 1772, La Vega reported the discovery of eighteen adult skeletons along with those of one adolescent and one child in the cellar of the ‘Villa of Diomedes’, beyond the ‘Herculaneum

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FIGURE 6.2 Jean Claude Richard, Abbé de Saint-Non, Voyage pittoresque de Naples et de Sicile Vol.1 (1782), ‘View of a cellar discovered at Pompeii’, https:// www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.81645.html National Gallery of Art, Mark J. Millard Architectural Collection Accession no.1985.61.2660.

Gate’. He commented that the ash had been moulded around organic matter, so as to preserve its impression, leaving behind clear traces of a wooden box, a large stack of small wooden boards, and traces of the victims’ clothing, including the drapery covering their heads and shoulders and a woman’s breast. Jewellery of gold and silver was also found nearby.16 Some of the imprints were cut out and taken to Portici, where the impression of the woman’s breast became the object of much admiration. Saint-Non provides one of the earliest descriptions of it in 1782, whilst Dupaty offers a more extensive response in his account of his visit in 1785: One represents half of her bosom, which is of exquisite beauty; another a shoulder, a third a portion of her shape, and all concur in revealing to us that this woman was young, and that she was tall and well made, and even that she had escaped in her shift; for some pieces of linen are still adhering to the ashes.17 The imprint continued to be viewed during the early nineteenth century, as Lady Blessington (among others) wrote that at Portici ‘One of the most touching mementos of the destruction of Pompeii is here shown, in the

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FIGURE 6.3 F. Mazois (1824), Les ruines de Pompéi, Vol.2, plate 34: Joseph II encounters skeleton (engraver: Angelo Testa), https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/ bpt6k106986n/f143.item#.

impression of a bosom, formed by the materials that destroyed her, whose charms it has thus preserved to posterity. A necklace and bracelets of gold were found with the remains of this young female, and their beauty indicates that she must have been of no mean rank’.18 The sight of the imprinted breast evoked strong reactions among its viewers, provoking fantastical reanimations of the victim.19 As previously mentioned, Bulwer-Lytton associated the imprint with his beautiful but unappealing character Julia, an association which Mark Twain parodied in his account of his visit to Pompeii in 1867, in Innocents Abroad (1869): ‘In one apartment eighteen skeletons were found, all in sitting postures, and blackened places on the walls still mark their shapes and show their attitudes, like shadows. One of them, a woman, still wore upon her skeleton throat a necklace, with her name engraved upon it—JULIE DI DIOMEDE’.20 The most elaborate reimagining was by Théophile Gautier (1811–72) in 1852. He based his novella Arria Marcella around the fantastical encounter between his hero Octavien and Arria Marcella, who is brought to life once more by his strong passion for her, which is inspired on seeing her imprint in the museum. She then went on to a life beyond the pages of his novella, as protagonist in his poem, ‘The Wife of Diomedes: a prologue’. This was first performed at the inauguration of the Pompeian Mansion on

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the avenue Montaigne in Paris in 1860.21 Commissioned by Jerome Napoleon for his mistress, the actress Rachel Félix (who died before the house was completed), this neo-Pompeian property combined features of the House of Pansa and Villa of Diomedes, along with more modern touches, such as a statue of Emperor Napoleon I in Roman guise. The recitation of the poem by Arria Marcella was followed by a performance of the play ‘The Flute Player’, written by Emile Augier. The poem opens with a conceit around the idea of her reanimation, as she wonders ‘Have I been asleep? But no . . . I was dead’. As she then looks around in astonishment at her surroundings, she can only conclude that Pompeii still lives, but, as she continues, Arria Marcella’s words begin to engage more with the contemporary world, notably Napoleonic ambitions for Paris to rival Rome as the imperial capital.22 The gap between the worlds of Pompeii past and present was further collapsed in the painting by Gustave Boulanger (1861), Rehearsal of ‘The Flute Player’ and ‘Wife of Diomedes’ at Prince Napoleon’s, which depicted the actors and authors during the dress rehearsal. In this, the (actress playing) Arria Marcella is depicted next to her creator, Gautier (Plate 6).23 The impression of the breast had ‘now almost crumbled away’ by 1864, but its visual impact lived on through the creative writing which it inspired.24 Some have suggested that the imprint may never have existed, but this suspicion may be unfounded, since it is first mentioned in the sober archaeological report of La Vega.25 At the very least there was something uncovered in 1772 that could plausibly be interpreted as the imprint of a woman’s breast. Nevertheless, we should not take everything we read about Pompeii at face value, as shown by the following example of a story that has been elaborated around a skeleton that may well never have existed. Excavation reports on 13 August 1763 record the discovery outside the ‘Herculaneum Gate’ to its left, next to a seat-tomb, of a vaulted structure bearing two inscriptions. Inside it was the plinth of a statue that was already missing. The inscriptions both recorded that this was a tomb given publicly to M. Cerrinius Restitutus.26 In effect, it was a structure with a rectangular niche immediately outside the gate.27 Early reports, such as Winckelmann’s the following year simply describe it as a grave monument.28 From this unlikely source arose the story of the sentinel of Pompeii, an inspirational tale of a guardsman who chose not to leave his post even in the midst of the eruption. This tale does not appear until the nineteenth century, when it became a popular feature of accounts of the site, despite reservations being expressed as to its historical veracity.29 The niche’s location immediately outside the gate seems to have inspired the story: as early as 1797, Mariana Starke had written ‘The City-Gate is highly interesting; here is the sentrybox for the Guard’.30 By 1823, it seems that Lady Blessington had been regaled with a more elaborate tale: ‘A skeleton, with a spear still grasped in its hand, was found in the reposoir, and is supposed to have been that of a sentinel, who met death at his post, the spear held even in death attesting his

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constancy to duty’.31 It is possible that this story was the responsibility of Gell, who escorted her on her visit, given that the same story appears in Gell and Gandy. They record that the recess had contained ‘a human skeleton, of which the hand still grasped a lance’, continuing with the comment that ‘Conjecture has imagined this the remains of a sentinel, who preferred dying at his post to quitting it for the more ignominious death which, in conformity with the severe discipline of his country, would have awaited him’.32 What they carefully report as ‘conjecture’, however, soon took on a life of its own. The story of the soldier was even included in the archaeological guide to Pompeii by Overbeck published in 1856, where it is stated that a soldier, perhaps a sentinel at the gate, was found in the tomb’s niche, holding a spear in his right hand and with his left hand in front of his mouth. The author takes pains to explain that even though the structure was part of a tomb, it nevertheless was being used as a guard post.33 Several writers also took pains to verify the story by claiming that remains of the sentinel – variously, his spear, breastplate, helmet and skull – were to be seen in Naples Museum.34 The story became embedded in the experience of visitors to the site, even though they did not all respond to it with the same gravity. In 1869, Mark Twain typically started his description of the sentinel along what had become traditional lines, only to end with a wry jibe at contemporary lawenforcers: But perhaps the most poetical thing Pompeii has yielded to modern research, was that grand figure of a Roman soldier, clad in complete armor; who, true to his duty, true to his proud name of a soldier of Rome, and full of the stern courage which had given to that name its glory, stood to his post by the city gate, erect and unflinching, till the hell that raged around him burned out the dauntless spirit it could not conquer. We never read of Pompeii but we think of that soldier; we can not write of Pompeii without the natural impulse to grant to him the mention he so well deserves. Let us remember that he was a soldier—not a policeman— and so, praise him. Being a soldier, he staid,—because the warrior instinct forbade him to fly. Had he been a policeman he would have staid, also— because he would have been asleep.35 Others cast doubt upon the whole story, with Breton warning already in 1855 that ‘It has even been written that a soldier, victim of discipline, had been found there dead at his post. It costs to destroy this glorious tradition: but it must be agreed those authors have forgotten to take account of two inscriptions, which, found in the monument, can leave no doubt as to its funerary purpose’.36 Similarly, in 1868, Thomas Dyer declared ‘Unfortunately, however, this story is a pure fable’, whilst the Baedeker guides to Pompeii shifted from presenting it as a ‘pleasing fable’ in 1873 to dismissing it as ‘mere fiction’ by 1880.37 This did not stop the story of the sentinel from

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taking on an exemplary function, something for which Fiorelli himself can take some responsibility, since during the revolutionary unrest of 1848 he had cited the Pompeian guardsman as a role model. In preparing to defend the Constitution, Fiorelli drew upon the past in order to support his position, falsely claiming that Pompeii had never been defeated in the Social War against Rome and declaring that a soldier had been found where he had died, standing guard at the ‘Herculaneum Gate’, having chosen death rather than desertion as his fate.38 This idea quickly spread far and wide. During the American Civil War, on 17 February 1865, Presbyterian Rev. Joseph C. Stiles invoked the example of the Pompeian sentinel as a model to rally his congregation at the 1st Baptist Church as Union troops were about to invade Richmond, during a two-hour homily on the history of cities under siege: ‘The earth beneath him heaved and rocked, but he kept his post! The air was whirling madly around him, but he kept his post! . . . Behind him the terrified people were fleeing in dismay, and he kept his post! My countryman! That old sentinel is the model man for you!’39 At roughly the same time, English painter Edward John Poynter (1836– 1919) produced an oil canvas, Faithful unto Death (1865), which was his first major success at the start of what became a distinguished career (Plate 7).40 This presents a youthful guardsman, looking up apprehensively at the eruption-filled sky and tensing every muscle in the strain of staying at his post. In the background, a chaotic scene of people being overcome as they try to escape with their worldly goods provides a clear contrast to the sentinel’s stoic endurance and adherence to duty. Poynter’s painting influenced further artists, such as the pioneering American sculptor Harriet Hosmer (1830–1908), who produced her eight-foot high figure, The Pompeian Sentinel in 1878 (Figure 6.4).41 The sculpture is now lost, but the single photograph that survives of it shows that it depicted the soldier as a man of mature years rather than as Poynter’s youthful figure, with eyes closed, ‘a worthy embodiment of duty in face of death’, according to one review in The Times. Newspaper reviews of Hosmer’s work were enthusiastic in their praise, but were over-anxious to assert its archaeological basis. The claim in the same review that the soldier’s armour could be seen outside the entrance to ‘Room 2 in the Museo Borbonico’ is undermined by the inaccuracy with which it claimed equally confidently that the soldier’s skeleton had been excavated on 20 April 1794. Hosmer’s rendition of the sentinel was strikingly different from her previous idealizing neoclassical sculptures in its weathered appearance, evoking the world of Roman ‘veristic’ portraiture that is suitable in invoking ideas of stoicism. Hosmer’s distinctive rough finish was also the result of experimenting in layering wax above plaster, a medium that alluded both to Roman ancestor masks created in wax and Fiorelli’s plaster casts.42 At the same time, however, the colossal scale of her work must have distanced it from the more intimate life-sized world of masks and casts, fundamentally undermining its relationship to reality.

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FIGURE 6.4 Harriet Hosmer, The Pompeian Sentinel (1878). Courtesy of the Watertown Library.

‘Stolen from death’: The plaster casts of Pompeii During the nineteenth century, a technique had been developed of pouring plaster of Paris into cavities left behind by decomposed organic matter in the surges’ ash layers, in order to recover the original form of the object that had otherwise disappeared. This was used to create the cast of a wooden door in 1856 and later was used to create casts of tree and plant roots (see Chapter 7). The most famous use of the technique, though, was to capture the impressions left behind by the human victims of Vesuvius.43 Recent analysis of a sample of these casts has now revealed that the process by which they were created went well beyond simply pouring plaster of Paris into the cavity, with metal rods also being inserted, additional elements in plaster being added to incomplete casts and different densities of plaster

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indicating restoration work or the patching together of different pieces into a single cast.44 The creation and display of these plaster casts had a transformative impact upon visitors’ perceptions of the site and its ancient population. The first successful human casts were made of four individuals under the direction of Fiorelli in February 1863.45 Fiorelli gave a sense of his excitement at the successful implementation of this technique in writing a report for the Giornale di Napoli newspaper on 12 February: The outcome has surpassed all my expectations. After some days of hard work, I had the satisfaction of seeing arise the entire figure of a man, missing only a small part of the right side, wrapped in a cloak, with long trousers and feet enclosed in a type of boots to which the nails and the iron pieces of the soles still adhered; the open mouth and the belly swollen beyond measure show how he had died suffocated by the waters and buried in the mud in which I found him enclosed . . . it is a pleasing compensation for me for the most exacting efforts, to have opened the way to obtaining an unknown class of monuments, through which archaeology will no longer be studied in marbles or bronzes, but over the very bodies of the ancients, stolen from death, after eighteen centuries of oblivion.46 The decision to communicate this discovery via the newspaper shows that Fiorelli wanted to publicize his discovery widely to the general public, rather than initially restrict its knowledge to the learned few, as would have happened in Bourbon times, thereby irking his superiors.47 Nor was Fiorelli the only one to consider that this discovery represented an important transformation in archaeological practice. In a letter penned to Fiorelli immediately after his return from the site having viewed the plaster casts for the first time, Luigi Settembrini (1813–76), at that time Professor of Italian Literature at the University of Naples, recorded his feelings, showing full awareness of the importance of this innovation in transforming people’s responses to the site and concluding ‘but you, my dear Fiorelli, have discovered human pain and whoever is human feels it’.48 Sommer collaborated with Fiorelli in producing photographs of the casts, which helped to publicize them to a wide audience. Along with fellow-photographer Edmondo Behles, Sommer produced a stereograph image at some point between 1866 and 1874, ‘Human Body Casts Found 5 February 1863’, illustrating two men looking at two casts laid out on a table (Figure 6.5). The act of viewing gained particular interest in this photographic format, in which two images were taken from a slightly different viewpoint and both were inserted into a frame, to be viewed through a special lens to give a three-dimensional impression.49 Viewing the plaster casts, then as now, tends to evoke feelings of horror. An anonymous author, who appears to be the politician and former archaeologist Austen Henry Layard (1817–94), summed this up succinctly in 1864: ‘more ghastly and painful, yet deeply-interesting and touching

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FIGURE 6.5 Casts of bodies found on 5 February, 1863. Albumen silver print by Sommer and Behles, https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/107KBX [84. XC.1625.61]. Getty Images.

objects, it is difficult to conceive. We have death itself moulded and cast – the very last struggle, the final agony brought before us. They tell their story with a horrible dramatic truth that no sculptor could ever reach.’50 Such a direct confrontation with the victims of Vesuvius discouraged further romanticizing of the town and its fate.51 The plaster casts are not, however, objective replicas of reality. The ways in which details on the casts were created at different periods show stylistic differences in approach: casts made under Maiuri, for example, tend to have slits for mouths and hollows for their eyes (Figure 6.6). This makes them more stylized objects, arguably reducing their emotional impact by making them appear less realistic. At the same time, however, the fact that Maiuri tended to leave the casts in situ means that their dramatic setting and juxtaposition more than makes up for the lack of facial details.52 Furthermore, the use of different materials for the casts also results in different levels of detail visible in the finished products, with the late nineteenth-century casts tending to be of a higher quality material than those produced in the twentieth century, particularly during the post-war period.53 As in the case of the skeletons, the temptation to create stories around these casts has been too strong for many to resist and it is common for family relationships to be deduced without seeking any actual evidence for them. This was the case for the very first casts, interpreted by Settembrini as being perhaps those of a husband, wife and daughter.54 This has resulted in traumatic tales of parents and their children, pregnant women, and even lovers perishing.55 In some cases, individuals have been ascribed occupations, such as the ‘muleteer’ found near a donkey in the area of the large palaestra (II.vii) in 1937. This was originally found face down but the cast has been rotated into a sitting position (Figure 6.7). Viewers have even imagined that

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FIGURE 6.6 Plaster cast made by Maiuri. From Lazer (2009) Resurrecting Pompeii, figure 10.6, drawing by E. Lazer.

they could recapture the feelings of the victims in their last breaths, often characterizing the men as facing death heroically and the women as being more inclined to struggle and panic. On viewing the first three casts, American consul William Dean Howells remarked: There are many things in Pompeii which bring back the gay life of the city, but nothing which so vividly reports the terrible manner of her death as these effigies of these creatures that actually shared it. The man in the last struggle has thrown himself upon his back, and taken his doom sturdily – there is a sublime calm in his rigid figure. The women lie upon their faces, their limbs tossed and distorted, their drapery tangled and heaped about them, and in every fibre you see how hard they died.56

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Furthermore, some casts have been subjected to comments about their physical attractions that go far beyond what is warranted from the plaster cast itself. Fiorelli’s ninth cast made in April 1875, whose buttocks and legs appeared exposed was compared with the statue of Venus ‘Kallipygos’ (‘of the beautiful buttocks’) in Naples Museum.57 In reality, ‘there is no clear evidence that this victim is female’.58 Initial results from the Pompeian Casts Project, which set out to clarify the processes by which the casts were initially created and in some cases later restored, have revealed how flawed the traditional interpretations of many of the casts are.59 During the course of this project, sixteen casts were analysed via computed tomography (CT) scanning and a further ten were x-rayed. Results of the scans of the sixteenth victim to be cast in 1890 threw into doubt the original interpretation that this individual had been a beggar, holding a bag for collecting alms, since the ‘bag’ was actually a miscast hand, whilst the skeletal remains suggested that the individual had been in his or her teenage years. The evidence points to ‘a young individual who had not yet reached adulthood, rather than the crippled old beggar that some have claimed’.60

Scientific approaches to human remains Although the skeletons from Pompeii, especially the craniums, were a source of study from the mid-nineteenth century, the limited research interests and methodologies adopted at that time cast more shadow than light upon the composition of the population of Pompeii.61 The undertaking of scientific study of the human bones at Pompeii has been a relatively recent phenomenon, hampered by the chaotic storage of many of those bones in rooms in the ‘Sarno Baths’ and women’s section of the ‘Forum Baths’. Other challenges have arisen from the disarticulation of individual skeletons, from the lack of information recording their provenance and from the underrepresentation of children in the material record.62 Nevertheless, the collection of bones remains unusual since they do not come from funerary contexts and since they all share the same date of death. Whilst taking account of the many biases and distortions in the surviving skeleton evidence, some important conclusions can be suggested. The majority of those killed in the eruption, whose skeletons are available for analysis, appear to have been young adults between the ages of 20 and 40: contrary perhaps to expectation, it does not seem to be the case that predominantly the old and infirm were victims of Vesuvius.63 This conclusion is supported by the low frequency of trauma detected in the bones, which likewise suggests that the victims were typically not infirm individuals unable to escape during the eruption.64 Overall, however, the victims identifiable from both skeletons and plaster casts appear to belong to the full range of ages, excluding the very young. It can be concluded that Pompeians in general were reasonably

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FIGURE 6.7 Plaster cast of the ‘muleteer’. Getty Images, https://www.gettyimages. co.uk/detail/photo/pompeii-victim-fossil-2-royalty-free-image/675971402. Image by Keith Ho.

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nourished, were able to recover from injuries, but had poor oral hygiene which may be symptomatic of other health problems not visible in the skeletal evidence.65 The evidence also suggests that although some individuals who had suffered fractured bones had received good treatment so that their bones healed properly, others ended up with a permanent injury.66 Although Fiorelli’s technique of making plaster casts involved first removing as many bones as possible from the cavity with long tongs, some bones still remain within the plaster covering.67 Analysis of these via CT scanning and X-ray has revealed further information about these individuals, which is consistent with the results deduced from the disarticulated skeletal remains.68 DNA analysis has also yielded interesting results in the case of thirteen skeletons discovered in two rear rooms adjacent to one another on the ground floor of the ‘House of Julius Polybius’ (IX.xiii.1–3) between 1966 and 1978.69 These included a woman wearing jewellery and carrying a bag of coins, a young woman in late pregnancy, two individuals holding hands, and five children, a scenario which initially prompted speculation as to their possible family relationships. DNA analysis has now confirmed that the victims consisted of four adult males (two young and two old), three adult females (young to middle aged), four boys (aged between eight and fourteen), one girl aged three and one unborn child of nine or ten lunar months whose sex could not be determined.70 The results further suggested that six of the thirteen – an adult male and female, three of the boys and the girl – were related maternally. Two of the individuals – the pregnant woman and a child of eight or nine – showed signs of spina bidifa occulta, which would also support a relationship between them.71 Attempts to deduce what these relationships were in more detail remain speculative. Given that the house was undergoing renovations at the time of the eruption, it is not even safe to assume that the individuals who died in it had also lived there.72 It does, however, support the hypothesis that some of the eruption’s victims did die in extended family groups. The casual attitude to the skeletons when found, their chaotic storage over many decades, their manipulation to create displays for tourists on site – all of these factors add up to one of the greatest missed opportunities in the study of Pompeii. The chance to analyse a good sample of human remains to uncover information about the town’s population has been lost. Future discovery of skeletons will only ever be able to compensate to a very small extent for this, but such research will need to bear in mind the ethical challenges of studying human skeletal remains.

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7 Rebuilding Pompeii

POMPEII – A correspondent of the German journals at Naples states that an Englishman, having lately obtained permission to live for a fortnight in one of the houses recently cleared at Pompeii, had it completely restored in its original style, and, with his family and servants, having assumed the ancient Roman costume, lived there during the whole period like a citizen of the republic, making the perusal of the classics his sole amusement. The Times, 20 Oct. 18371

Conservation and reconstruction Archaeology is destructive. Not only do archaeologists have to destroy upper levels as they dig down, but buildings and artefacts alike begin to deteriorate once they are uncovered. In the case of Pompeii, the processes of conservation and reconstruction have often been closely aligned. Initially, during the Bourbon era, individual objects were both conserved and reconstructed. Workshops were established at Portici, where specialists like Giuseppe Canart and Camillo Paderni restored paintings, mosaics, marbles and bronzes.2 Tanucci’s letters to King Charles often report on the progress being made in restoring antiquities, as well as recording the latest finds, with nine letters in 1761 alone commenting on restoration work.3 The methods used now appear questionable: if a bronze artefact was considered not worth restoring, its pieces might be re-cast, to be repurposed to supply pieces missing from objects that were deemed worth restoring or even to create modern artefacts, such as busts in relief of the king and queen, as Winckelmann observed.4 The practice of removing paintings, mosaics and other objects to Portici has created many problems for our understanding of their original context, even though attempts were made to document paintings in situ before they were removed from some buildings like the Temple of Isis and the Estate of Julia Felix, but it has preserved items that would otherwise now be lost.5 At least some contemporaries considered the extraction and framing of paintings at Portici in a positive light. In 1768, 109

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Johan Tobias Sergel, a young Swedish sculptor, described how ‘for preservation’s sake they are coated with varnish and set in glass frames’.6 Paintings of the games on the balustrade overlooking the arena in the Amphitheatre were left in situ, having been uncovered between February and April 1815, only to be lost to frost damage just months later in February 1816.7 Other paintings left in situ were damaged by guides throwing cold water over them in order to enhance their colour for visitors. Canart had complained of this to Tanucci already in 1763, but the practice continued: further complaints were penned by Marchese Ruffo, Minister of the Royal Household in May 1822 to Arditi, whilst Lady Blessington commented on it after her visit in 1823 and it was formally banned by Article 101 in the Regulations for the Royal Bourbon Museum of 1828.8 The paintings of Pompeii presented a particular challenge, since their colours faded rapidly once exposed to daylight.9 From as early as 1749, paintings removed from Pompeii were treated with a varnish, which had been prepared by a captain of artillery, Stefano Moriconi, in an attempt to fix their colours. After the death of Moriconi in 1750, his widow continued to be paid a pension of six ducats a month in return for the secret recipe until her death in 1779. By 1766, however, this varnish was criticized for damaging the paintings, changing their colouring and causing bits to flake off as it crystallized, but Canart (who was in charge of extracting the paintings) initially defended its use.10 Further consultation of experts took place, with Paderni himself devising an alternative varnish in 1771,11 but a letter from the overseer of Portici, Macedonio, to Prime Minister Sambuca on 25 April 1782 reveals that only after over forty years was it agreed that the varnish was not beneficial and that it should be replaced with other treatments.12 Even so, the problem continued into the nineteenth century: in 1805, Pietro La Vega recorded an experiment with a new wax-based treatment, whilst two different mixtures invented by Andrea Celestino – one for use on paintings subject to weathering on the site and the other for paintings removed indoors to the museum – were tested repeatedly for many years (1811–28) by the Museum’s Director, Michele Arditi, before finally being officially adopted.13 Alongside attempts to preserve objects extracted from the site, as early as the mid-1760s, the site’s Director, Francesco La Vega, began to take steps to conserve the structures that had been excavated, shoring up walls in the ‘Villa of Diomedes’ and intervening to support vaulted structures.14 The Temple of Isis was one of the earliest structures in Pompeii to be entirely excavated without subsequently being reburied. The decision to leave structures exposed to the open air posed new challenges. Steps were taken to protect the temple from damage caused by animals or people alike by digging a ditch around it and installing a barred gate.15 Once again, the paintings caused particular anxiety: Tanucci raised his concerns with La Vega about how paintings could be both kept in situ and effectively protected, whilst the king expressed his preference for detaching and removing paintings rather

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than risking them being damaged by the weather. In a report to Tanucci of 27 October 1765, La Vega proposed erecting roofing over the paintings to protect them, and straw roofing can be seen in a painting by Jean-Louis Desprez of around 1777–78, as well as in a hand-coloured etching by Jakob Philipp Hackert of 1793, which focuses upon the Theatre but incidentally records the Temple with its protective roofing as well (Plate 8).16 Only a year later, in September 1794 the roofing was dismantled by La Vega after it had threatened to fall off.17 This illustrates one of the enduring problems at Pompeii, namely the disintegration of the very measures initially taken with the intention of preserving structures on the site. Voices were repeatedly raised over many decades in support of recreating a house at Pompeii in order to enhance visitors’ appreciation of the site. Such plans for reconstruction were also regarded as a means of conserving structures in situ. In 1781, John Moore (physician and writer, 1729–1802) called for the site to be brought back to life by reconstructing a house, together with its roof, decoration and furnishings: It is to be wished they would cover one of the best houses with a roof, as nearly resembling that which originally belonged to it as they could imagine, with a complete assortment of the antique furniture of the kitchen and each particular room. Such a house fitted up with accuracy and judgment, with all its utensils and ornaments properly arranged, would be an object of universal curiosity, and would swell the heart of the antiquarian with veneration and delight.18 Royal support for such a project was secured in 1823, when King Ferdinand I approved in principle Arditi’s proposal to reconstruct an entire house with all its objects, but nothing further was done.19 The influential French writer François-René de Chateaubriand presented an even more ambitious suggestion in an account of his journey to Pompeii in January 1804, which was published in 1827: ‘In my view it would be better to leave things in the place where they were found, and just as they were found, to put back the roofs, ceilings, floors, and windows, to prevent the deterioration of the paintings and walls; to reconstruct the town’s ancient defensive circuit, and to close the gates; finally to establish a military guard, with some individuals knowledgeable in the arts. Wouldn’t that be the most amazing museum in the world? A Roman town completely preserved, as if its inhabitants had just gone out a quarter of an hour earlier!’ He further argued that visiting Pompeii would provide better insight into Roman civilization than reading all of ancient literature and that the expenses incurred in carrying out the restoration work would be amply recouped by the massive influx of foreign visitors. More practically, he

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suggested that this process need not be done all at once, but could be gradually implemented as the excavations continued.20 In 1836, the architect Pietro Bianchi proposed restoring the ‘House of the Faun’, which had just been excavated between 1829 and 1833, and there are hints that this proposal may have been put into practice.21 The London Times newspaper of 1837 (cited at the beginning of this chapter) contains a vague report of an unnamed Englishman, who had restored a house ‘in its original style’ and then lived there for a fortnight with his family, whilst Alexandre Dumas lived in the ‘House of the Faun’ for over a week during that same year.22 This restoration was not lasting, though, given that in 1848 there was once again a proposal to reconstruct an entire house with all of its objects.23 Later still, one of Dumas’ ambitions when he became Director of the site in 1860 was to reconstruct a house, complete with ancient furniture, copies of its paintings on the walls and heavy curtains hanging in its doorways, as a means of providing visitors to the site with a vivid interactive experience.24 For Dumas, this was part of his romantic vision. His aim was to evoke the spirit of antiquity as a means of inspiring contemporaries, just as he himself had drawn upon the ‘House of the Faun’ for inspiration in writing Caligula.25 A slightly different emphasis can be seen in the case of the ‘House of Marcus Lucretius’ (IX.iii.5), which the English architect Edward Falkener was allowed to excavate at his own expense in 1847. Whereas previous discussions of restoration had focused upon interior decoration, Falkener left in situ the marble sculptures adorning the garden as well, realizing that a house’s garden was just as important as its interior rooms for creating an overall impression of its original state.26 Despite awareness that reconstruction could be a powerful interpretative tool in enhancing visitors’ appreciation of life in Pompeii, it was not until towards the end of the nineteenth century that plans began to focus upon the interrelated processes of reconstruction and conservation.27 Although Fiorelli’s new regulations of 1861 had encompassed the duties of the site’s architects in conserving the remains, fresh impetus for conservation and reconstruction came when Michele De Ruggiero took over from him as Director of the site in 1875.28 His plans included installing roofs and clearing overgrown vegetation. Attempts were made to indicate where reconstruction work had taken place: in restoring the monumental gateway to the Triangular Forum, new columns were left without fluting, in order to distinguish them visually from the original columns, which were fluted.29 This emphasis upon conservation and restoration set the scene for De Ruggiero’s successor, Giulio De Petra who, as Director from 1893 to 1901 and 1906 to 1910, retained paintings and objects where they had been found and undertook one of the most famous reconstructions in the history of the site, of the ‘House of the Vettii’ (VI.xv.1), which was excavated in 1894–95. Not only were its paintings and furnishings left in situ and a roof reconstructed over the atrium, but the flower beds uncovered in its peristyle garden were also replanted (Figure 7.1). Their design drew inspiration from

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FIGURE 7.1 Peristyle garden, ‘House of the Vettii’. Albumen silver print by Giorgio Sommer, 1870–90. Getty Museum Image 91.XM.84.19, https://www.getty. edu/art/collection/object/107JCF.

the adjacent wall paintings, since archaeological science had not yet yielded the precise archaeobotanical data needed for an accurate reconstruction, but visitors could gain an impression of the interaction between fountains, sculptures and plants.30 The novelty of this reconstruction work was commemorated in an inscription set up in the house: ‘This house, found in the years 1894 and 1895, was not despoiled of its furnishings of marbles and paintings, with its smaller portico restored as in antiquity with the flower beds of its garden flowering once more, with its fountains gushing again. Guido Baccelli [Minister of Education] wanted an example of resurrecting Pompeian private life’.31 This attractive backdrop then offered an irresistible setting in which Guglielmo Plüschow (1852–1930) took the idea of reconstruction one stage further in his photography, staging homoerotic portraits of youths, who posed either naked or scantily clad in ostensibly antique tunics.32 The replica roofing of the ‘House of the Vettii’ was only a temporary fix, however, requiring to be reconstructed repeatedly in 1927, in the 1950s and once again demolished and replaced in recent years, as it was in danger of disintegrating. As La Vega discovered in the 1790s, the materials used for conservation efforts have not always lasted the test of time, generating

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problems of their own as they deteriorate. In this case, they have now been replaced by modern materials, such as beams of parallam© PSL (‘parallel strand lumber’), which binds together strands of wood with adhesive in a product that is stronger than natural timber. Even this does not have an indefinite life-span, of course.33 According to Antonio Sogliano (subsequently Director from 1905 to 1910), the new emphasis on conservation and restoration was instrumental in increasing the income derived from entrance fees to the site from 60,000 to 100,000 lire per annum.34 In the case of the ‘House of the Vettii’, the fact that it quickly became essential viewing for every visitor to Pompeii only put extra pressure on attempts to conserve it. Towards the end of the Second World War, the need to conserve the ‘House of the Vettii’ was exacerbated by bomb damage. In August and September 1943, 160 bombs dropped by the Royal Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force and United States Air Force landed on the archaeological site. Some of the bombs dropped on 24 and 25 August, whose targets were the railway marshalling yards and steelworks at nearby Torre Annunziata, ended up hitting the southwestern area of the site. They destroyed the Antiquarium near the Marine Gate and damaged houses in Region VII and the Forum.35 The bombing from 13 to 29 September targeted the transportation network that linked Naples with central and northern Italy and the south. This action was in support of the Allied landings further south in the Gulf of Salerno, and also in response to a German counterattack that threatened to disrupt the landings.36 A large number of the bombs missed their targets, landing instead upon the archaeological site. Precautions had been taken since the start of the war, with some items being removed for safekeeping from houses, but the structures themselves remained vulnerable.37 Reports were current in newspapers and among local civilians that the Allies had been aiming at German troops stationed within the site or in a hotel on its outskirts, or that the Allies had mistakenly believed that this was the case. A report ‘Damage at Pompeii, British officer’s account’ published in The Times newspaper on 9 November 1943 asserted that the Allies had been forced to treat the site as a military objective given that the Germans had been encamped on the site, and that a visiting British officer had observed damage to the arena of the Amphitheatre, the Gladiators’ Training School, various houses, the Temple of Jupiter and Temple of Apollo in the Forum and the Antiquarium.38 The Director of Pompeii, Amedeo Maiuri, also believed that the Allies had deliberately targeted the site, as he recorded in his later memoirs.39 Nevertheless, military documents demonstrate that was not the case. Neither is there any evidence, though, that the Allies took into consideration the proximity of the site to their intended targets. Instead, the Allies’ efforts were focused upon causing damage to the main roads and bridges and to the railways. Given the close proximity of the ruins to these networks and technical limitations on the accuracy with which bombs could hit their targets, various parts of the site

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were hit by accident.40 The fact that the bombing also accidentally exposed the previously unknown Temple of Bacchus at S. Abbondio was no compensation for the damage caused, such as the loss of wall paintings, and the immediate post-war years were spent in repairing bomb damage.41 Maiuri adopted a system of including ‘suture lines’ in brick to show where reconstruction work lay. Once again, however, these restorations were not always long-lasting, contributing to the later collapse of restored structures, such as the Schola Armaturarum (III.iii.6) in 2010.42 On the whole, reconstruction in the late nineteenth century did not extend beyond the site’s physical structures, but there is some evidence relating to special events that reanimated the site. In 1879, the 1,800th anniversary of the town’s destruction was marked by the performance of Latin poetry and speeches in the Basilica, but such re-enactments were uncommon and met with criticism.43 A report in The Times newspaper felt bound to protest that ‘it is a little difficult to sympathize with the ingenuity which has found in one of the most terrible of human disasters a subject for festivity’. The journalist Cesira Pozzolini-Siciliani brought her account of a visit to Pompeii in 1876 to an end by describing how the site came to life again after dark in a son et lumière performance. Over a hundred invited guests came by train from Naples to the Forum, which was artificially lit up by electricity for the occasion, with an orchestra installed in the Macellum, to watch a Pompeian wedding re-enacted in the Temple of Jupiter. This was followed by a spectacular re-staging of Nero crowning the Parthian Tiridates as King of Armenia, which had taken place in the Forum at Rome in ad 66. A final scene evoked the eruption of Vesuvius and the panic of the people of Pompeii. As Pozzolini-Siciliani concluded, ‘What a difference between the eruption of 25 August ad 79 and this festival of 1879! The former, an irreparable destruction, the ruin of entire cites; the latter, an entertainment, a game, a joke’.44 The incongruity of making merry on a site that had witnessed such human suffering was to some extent countered by a still more lavish festival a few years later, when De Petra made a further attempt at recreating ‘living history’ in 1884. The site was reanimated over three days with lavish spectacles featuring chariot races, wedding and funeral processions and gladiatorial exercises in the Amphitheatre.45 This time, however, attempts were made to pre-empt criticism by the event being intended to raise money in the wake of a devastating earthquake on Ischia, even though it failed in its fund-raising aims. Even so, these attempts to revive the dead city were still considered to be in ‘questionable taste’, ‘amusing and archaeologically interesting’ but ‘out of tune’.46 In general, as the next section will illustrate, such recreations of scenes of ‘everyday’ life in Pompeii remained instead more typical of artistic scenes on canvas rather than of real-life performance, even though theatrical plays, especially of Greek drama, have been staged in the Theatre over the years, including as recently as 2017.47

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Reimagining Pompeii Artists did not have to wait for Pompeii to be reconstructed before they started to imagine a reanimated Pompeii. From as early as the 1780s, artists began to include ancient inhabitants in scenes reconstructed from what was preserved only as ruins. French architect Louis-Jean Desprez took part in a tour of southern Italy and Sicily organized by Dominique-Vivan Denon (later Director of the Louvre Museum) in the late 1770s. Impressions of the tour were then published by Jean Claude Richard, Abbé de Saint-Non, in his five-volumed Voyage pittoresque de Naples et de Sicile (1781–86). This included prints of Pompeii based on drawings by Desprez, including images of the ‘Villa of Diomedes’ both in ruins and in reconstruction, complete with a party of diners in ancient dress. Desprez gave free rein to his imagination in his sketch of rituals taking place at night in the Temple of Isis, evoking the smells and sounds of the ceremonies as much as their visual effect (cf. Figure 3.4).48 Figures in Roman dress and a Roman soldier on horseback were even included by Francesco Piranesi in his print of the ‘Herculaneum Gate’ in Antiquités de Grande Grèce (1804) (Vol. 1 plate 8), even though he depicted them against a back-drop of ruins. This perhaps reflected a desire to invite comparison between the Roman empire and contemporary ideas of the Napoleonic empire, which had just been proclaimed in 1804.49 The same volume also included an elevation and section by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (plate 35) of the tomb of the Istacidii outside the ‘Herculaneum Gate’, in which he made clear what he had restored, by using lighter lines for the conjectural restorations. From these beginnings, architectural reconstruction soon became an integral part of French engagement with the ruins.50 From 1788, all ‘pensionnaires’ awarded the Prix de Rome at the French Academy in Rome had been obliged to complete an architectural project. This project was to include a plan, section and elevation of a building or complex, together with an analysis of its actual state and conjectural restoration and notes on its chronology. At first, the buildings approved for study were all in Rome, but Pompeii was added, as the Napoleonic regime at Naples sponsored further excavation, notably in the area of the Forum. The aim was to build up a collection of architectural drawings that were to be useful in design.51 These drawings were first exhibited in the French Academy before being sent to Paris, where they were housed in the library of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. The first portfolio to include Pompeii was by Louis Destouches in 1818, with examples continuing until 1937.52 The restorations themselves tended to obey abstract rules of correct proportion rather than to reflect how the buildings were actually constructed.53 By the early twentieth century, a new approach is seen in the portfolios, designs now including figures against the architectural setting. This reflected the wider cultural shift towards thinking about architecture as an urban context for people rather than as just a built structure. Whereas in 1823, the restoration of the Forum by Félix-Emmanuel

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Callet included a ground-plan, a cut-through reconstruction and architectural details such as antefixes and column capitals, in 1910, by contrast, Léon Jaussely peopled his reconstruction of the Forum with ancient figures.54 Other artists created vivid reconstructions of Pompeian life on canvas, breathing life into the ruins once more. Some of these drew inspiration directly from Bulwer-Lytton’s novel, such as the painting of Glaucus and Nydia (1867) by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836–1912) (Plate 9).55 This recreated the scene in the novel (Book 3, chapter 4) when the blind Nydia sat beside her master Glaucus, weaving a garland of roses for him as she concealed her unrequited love. Individuals populating other scenes remain nameless, but a sense of their emotions and life histories emerges no less strongly for that. Having visited Pompeii in 1863 when on honeymoon, Alma-Tadema took inspiration from the ruins, painting scenes reconstructing everyday life. He built up a private library of archaeological works and several thousand photographs in his house in St John’s Wood, London, as well as a collection of reproductions, including Chiurazzi foundry bronzes, which he used to give an impression of accuracy to his architectural settings and individual pieces of furniture.56 His painting An Exedra (1869) was an elaboration on what had become one of Pompeii’s iconic sights, the tomb of Mamia just outside the Herculaneum Gate (Plate 10; compare Figure 3.1).57 In 1789, Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein had painted a portrait of Anna Amalia von Weimar seated on this tomb, a spot recommended by Goethe. His painting is essentially a realistic representation of the tomb, although the layout of the inscription is altered to render the entire text legible, but Tischbein also added theatrical masks in the background to reflect the sitter’s role as patron of the arts.58 Like Tischbein, Alma-Tadema did not reproduce the architecture exactly, adding palmettes to the ends of the tomb, and making the scene more sumptuous by representing the tomb in white marble rather than dark tufa, but the accurate transcription of the inscription allows for a clear identification of the monument. The scene is striking for its implied narrative: a slave sitting on the kerbside is clearly bored with his lot, having to wait whilst others take their time.59 Alma-Tadema includes imaginative and anachronistic details, with the slave wearing a garment printed with his owner’s name and holding a parasol. Other paintings by Alma-Tadema characterized Pompeii as a decadent and luxurious society, creating pastiches rather than accurate archaeological representations. He produced fantastical architectural backgrounds, mixing up authentic elements in unrealistic combinations. In The Vintage Festival (1871), for instance, the scene includes a paving inscription reminiscent of the one across the orchestra of the Covered Theatre; a doorframe to the left in the background that resembles the one now associated with the Building of Eumachia; and a painting of the myth of Hercules and Omphale that copies one in the House of M. Lucretius Fronto (V.iv.a). This is presented as a modern painting in a frame rather than as a fresco on the wall (Plate 11). Overall, therefore, his paintings are not realistic representations based upon

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archaeological evidence, but imaginative, decadent scenes evoking the sensual life supposed to be typical of Pompeians. Nor was Alma-Tadema the only artist with this view of Pompeii: similar ‘everyday’ scenes of individuals set against recognizable interiors are found in the work of Domenico Morelli (1823–1901) (a friend of Alma-Tadema) whose Pompeian Bath (1861) seems almost photographic in character.60 Other paintings featured A Seller of Amphorae (Enrico Salfi, 1883), The Bedroom of a Pompeian Woman (Federico Maldarelli, 1870), and A Gladiatorial Combat during a Dinner Party at Pompeii (Francesco Netti, 1880). Théodore Chassériau (1819–56) successfully reimagined a voluptuous scene that also recreated its setting with archaeological accuracy. His Tepidarium. Room where the women of Pompeii came to relax and dry themselves on leaving the bath, exhibited in Paris in 1853, depicted the Forum Baths with precise archaeological detail. The women are depicted against the niches and stuccoed ceiling that can still be seen today, and even includes furniture found in the baths, such as the bronze bench upon which a woman sits to the right: the cows’ heads were a visual pun of the name of the bench’s donor, Nigidius Vacculus (‘little cow’) (Plate 12).61

Reconstructing the natural environment of Pompeii As discussed earlier, the peristyle garden of the ‘House of the Vettii’ (see Figure 7.1) was one of the first examples of a Pompeian garden being replanted, drawing upon the evidence of the planting beds whose outlines were traced during excavation. Inspiration was also drawn from flowers, plants, shrubs and trees depicted in the detailed paintings of gardens found in the town, which Orazio Comes, a professor of botany, first identified in his study of 1879. His identifications included fifty trees, shrubs and flowers such as cypress, oleander and poppy.62 Wall paintings, however, give only a partial picture of the town’s natural environment: more recent work that draws upon the full range of evidence (including analysis of both carbonized remains and of pollen) now points to 279 different types of plants in the Vesuvian region.63 In some cases, replanted gardens paid scant attention to historical authenticity, being designed instead with aesthetic qualities in view: the ‘House of Pansa’ (VI.vi.1) was planted anachronistically with oranges, mandarins, magnolias and persimmons.64 Despite oranges being such a prominent feature of the local landscape nowadays, they were only introduced to Italy in the mid-ninth century, whilst magnolias are an even more recent import and persimmons only began to be cultivated in Campania in the twentieth century.65 This practice met with criticism in his report to the Ministry of Public Education in 1906 by Sogliano, who oversaw the redesign of gardens like those of the ‘House of the Vettii’ with plants that

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were indigenous and attested in antiquity. Other gardens were replanted with a view to easy maintenance, prioritizing evergreen shrubs and trees that would not create the need for extensive leaf-sweeping in the autumn.66 In the 1960s, however, a new level of scientific accuracy was brought to the study of Pompeii’s natural environment by the pioneering work of Wilhelmina Jashemski (1910–2007), which led to a transformation of the site’s modern environment through replantings based upon the evidence uncovered by her studies. Jashemski first tried to identify systematically the location and character of all the gardens in Pompeii, supplementing her archaeological investigations with material drawn from the archives. As a result of her work, even if some of the details have been contested, we can now reconstruct a town full of colour and life, with ornamental gardens and vegetable plots within houses, market gardens and vineyards of various sizes.67 She adopted the technique of making plaster casts of root cavities, but, unlike previous excavators, she used the technique on a wider range of cavities, not just large tree roots. When trees and plants died in the aftermath of the eruption, their roots decayed, so that gradually the cavities left behind became filled by volcanic debris. When excavating a new area of the town, the debris, or lapilli, is removed for several metres until the ancient ground level is reached. At this point, lapilli-filled cavities become visible on the surface. These can be painstakingly cleared of lapilli, and then filled anew with cement. When this hardens, the soil from around the cast is removed, and often the shape of the root can be identified as a specific plant, such as a vine, or plane tree (Figure 7.2).68 Although it can be difficult to distinguish with certainty between the root cavities of different plants, more certainty can be reached by looking at the planting patterns, since different species tend to be planted at different distances.69 In addition, Jashemski studied soil contours, which revealed the presence of planting beds and irrigation channels, and analysed floral and faunal remains, such as pollen and animal bones. One of Jashemski’s most notable achievements was to reveal that the large area known as the cattle market was in fact a large commercial vineyard. The insula directly to the north of the Amphitheatre (II.v) was first excavated in 1755, and later again in 1814. The area was variously identified as a cattle market, or as a burial or banqueting place for gladiators or as the place where animals were kept penned up for hunting exhibitions in the Amphitheatre. It seems that these identifications were suggested on the basis of its location, the discovery of bones of various animals and the presence of a masonry triclinium near its entrance from the Amphitheatre. Further investigation during the 1950s revealed two rooms equipped for winemaking. Jashemski started to reassess the insula in 1966. By 1968, 1,423 vine-root cavities had been identified, increasing to 2,014 by 1970.70 It has now been replanted with vines, recreating an impression of its original appearance. On one side of the vineyard was a small building where wine was made, enclosing a pressroom and an open shed with ten embedded storage jars,

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FIGURE 7.2 Plaster casts of vine root and stake next to replanted vine, in Villa Regina, Boscoreale (Photograph: A. E. Cooley). By permission of the Ministry of Culture – Archaeological Park of Pompeii; further reproduction or duplication by any means is forbidden.

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where the grape juice could be stored for fermentation. Each jar had a capacity of about 275 gallons, which would fill about forty amphorae.71 This vineyard is unusually large, and its possession of a winepress distinguishes it from smaller establishments, where the grapes were crushed by foot. The vineyard may even have been a venue for feasts and banquets.72 Two triclinia are located in the vineyard, and Jashemski found eleven bones with cleaver marks, where they had been split to obtain marrow, indicating that they represent debris from meals. The primary purpose of the vineyard, though, was the production of wine rather than the provision of a banqueting venue. This wine was probably sold from the shop abutting onto the ‘Street of Abundance’.73 This was not the only example of commercial agriculture within the town’s walls. Several other smaller vineyards, orchards and market gardens also came into view through Jashemski’s excavations. These are not quite on the same scale as the large vineyard, but are not negligible in size: one orchard (I.xxii) appears to have contained about 300 trees.74 Such premises would presumably have produced goods for the local urban market. Vines grown in the ‘Inn of Euxinus’ (I.xi.10–11), near the Amphitheatre, would have supplied customers with home-produced wine. This inn has a counter at its main entrance, where customers could be served refreshments. In addition, a large open area, also accessible from the street, could accommodate customers who wished to take their time. Thirty-two vines planted in irregular rows produced grapes which could be fermented on the premises in two large storage jars, found partially embedded in the ground, each with a capacity of about 100 gallons. Jashemski calculated that a vineyard of this size might have produced up to about 75 gallons per annum, so we might appear to have a discrepancy between the capacity of the jars (200 gallons) and the productive capacity of the vineyard (75 gallons). But this was not the only cultivated plot, since in addition a large open area at the rear of the connecting house was also planted with vines. The innkeeper did not limit himself to selling home-produced wine, however: some wine amphorae were found labelled with the painted inscription giving the address to which they were to be delivered – ‘at Pompeii/ near the Amphitheatre/ to the innkeeper Euxinus’.75 An appreciation that Pompeii’s natural environment was just as important to its economy and society as its built environment has now led to the point where the site’s green spaces are treated as an integral part of its cultural heritage. Current planning has, however, had to devise a compromise between historical accuracy and the needs of conservation. Replanting Pompeii’s gardens enhances visitors’ understanding of the interaction between the town’s built and natural environments, but a simplified approach is needed in order to reduce the amount of maintenance subsequently needed by these gardens. Therefore, a new emphasis has been introduced upon replanting new gardens with local plants that generate low demands for maintenance. Broader environmental concerns also include

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ensuring biodiversity so as to encourage insects, birds and small mammals, using recycled and recyclable materials and reducing waste. Although this approach has meant a departure from reconstructing in every detail the historical layouts of the original gardens, it is a pragmatic solution that is more likely to enable the natural environment of the site to be maintained, prioritizing conservation over reconstruction.76

The Great Pompeii Project In 1997, the archaeological site of Pompeii – along with those of Herculaneum and Torre Annunziata – became listed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as a World Heritage Site under the terms of the World Heritage Convention of 1972. This raised the profile of the importance of preserving the site, as of outstanding value to people throughout the world.77 One of the main challenges in preserving the site is the overwhelming number of tourists who visit every year, who can cause damage both inadvertently and consciously: Pompeii has seen over two million visitors every year since 2000, with the number exceeding three million in 2016 and 2017.78 Conservation pressures have accumulated over many years, not least as a result of the Irpinia earthquake of November 1980, which necessitated over 2,000 interventions to prop up structures on the site.79 A crisis point then seemed to have been reached in 2010 with the collapse of various structures on the site, notably the Schola Armaturarum, which attracted media attention.80 In response, the Great Pompeii Project was inaugurated in 2012, which was a major initiative funded by the European Commission, whose aim was to resolve urgent problems of conservation, maintenance, and restoration across the whole site.81 Over the course of the project, from 2012 to 2018, more than thirty houses and building complexes were restored and reopened to the public.82 Efforts were made to tackle problems arising from inadequate drainage and the need to stabilize the pressure imposed on the ruins by unexcavated ground along the edges of the excavated areas over some 2.6 kilometres. In a neat cycle, the Sarno aqueduct built at the end of the sixteenth century has been brought back into use, in order to assist with clearing away rainwater.83 Conservation is ongoing, having been regularized with a schedule of daily preventive measures being taken, but the challenges of maintaining such a large site remain formidable.84 In addition, the Great Pompeii Project has improved accessibility to the site for visitors on the ground, implementing a 3.5-kilometre itinerary that is accessible to wheelchair users and pushchairs alike, ‘Pompeii for All’.85 Finally, a programme of documenting the entire site – a Knowledge Plan – on a more detailed scale than ever before (1:50 rather than 1:500) via non-invasive laser scanning is in progress. This will provide a new level of accurate topographical detail for scholars studying the remains.

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The excavation of new areas of the site has continued in order to help stabilize sections where the unexcavated ground creates too much pressure upon the excavated structures.86 This has uncovered in the north-western Region V the remains of previously unknown houses, shops and bars, along with their fine paintings and mosaics, painted electoral notices and graffiti as well as a group of ten bodies of women and children in a room just off the atrium of the ‘House with the Garden’ (V.iii). In the same house, a graffito written in charcoal found on a wall of the atrium, which was undergoing refurbishment at the time of the eruption, has once again raised questions about the month in which Vesuvius erupted (see Chapter 1): ‘17 October in the oil store they took [word erased]’. The date itself is clear, but the rest of the text has been read in various ways. If we take this as evidence for an autumn eruption date, this requires us to assume that letters written in charcoal would not last for several months in this covered space and that the graffito was indeed written on the wall in October 79. This is far from certain.87 One of the most informative finds is the long inscription elegantly incised upon the marble of a tomb just beyond the Stabian Gate, partially uncovered where it had been incorporated into a nineteenth-century building during works to consolidate the foundations of the modern building. It recounts the many benefactions given to the town by the deceased, whose name has not been preserved on the tomb, but who may have been Gnaeus Alleius Nigidius Maius. These included providing a feast for a staggering number of 6,840 of the town’s citizenry on the occasion of his coming-ofage, offering the most splendid gladiatorial games, selling grain at a subsidized price and distributing loaves of bread for free at a time of food shortage and making distributions of cash to different parts of society. Through these benefactions, the deceased acted almost as a miniature emperor for his own community.88 It is clear that Pompeii still holds a wealth of information waiting to be excavated. It is equally clear, however, that the pressures put upon the site by the millions of annual visitors continue to threaten the site’s well-being. This has been eased in recent months thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, but visitor numbers are resuming their usual levels. The experience of visiting Pompeii continues to change. We can only wonder what new insights will emerge in the future from the application of new technological and scientific methods. We can only hope that Vesuvius maintains its current slumber.

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NOTES

Introduction 1

Goethe [1816] (1892) 194.

2

Osanna (2019) 10.

3

Gazda (2000); Painter (2001).

4

Osanna (2019) 99.

5

Mozart: Pappalardo (2006); Rowland (2014) 113–19. Scott: Gell (1957) 8.

6

Beard (2009).

Chapter 1 1

All extracts from Pliny are from Cooley and Cooley (2014) 45–9.

2

Jones (2001); Keeline (2018); Gibson (2020), ch.4, ‘Campania’; Foss (2022).

3

Strabo, Geography 5.4.8; Diodorus of Sicily 4.21.5; cf. Vitruvius, On Architecture 2.6.2: Cooley and Cooley (2014), 44; Connors (2015).

4

Sigurdsson (2002) 32.

5

Cooley and Cooley (2014) 32.

6

Masson (1709) 27–30.

7

Foss (2022) chs 3–4, esp. 128–32 on Pliny followed by review of other evidence, 132–48. For a graffito from 17 October, see Chapter 7 (this volume).

8

Foss (2022) 139–40.

9

Borgognino and Stefani (2001/2); Ciarallo and De Carolis (1998); Ciarallo (2003).

10 Jashemski (1987) 64; Jashemski, Meyer, Ricciardi (2002) 154; Foss (2022) 144. 11 Roberts and Robinson (2019) 54–5. 12 Evidence for wine-making is dismissed by Foss (2022) 141–3 as ‘scanty and sporadic’. 13 Rolandi, Paone, Di Lascio, Stefani (2007); contrast Foss (2022) 138. 14 Stefani (2006); Stefani and Borgongino (2007); Abdy (2013), photographs of the coin: plate 18. Background on the house with illustrations of its finds and casts of the victims is in Roberts (2013) 298–9.

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NOTES TO PAGES 10–18

15 October favoured by Borgongino and Stefani (2001/2); Stefani and Borgongino (2007); November by Pappalardo (1990) 210–11. Strong case for August in Foss (2022). 16 Osanna (2019) ch.9. 17 Winckelmann (2011) 72. 18 Sigurdsson (2002) 30. 19 Cocco (2007) 28–30; Cocco (2012) ch.2, esp. 66–7. 20 Trevelyan (1976) ch.1, himself involved in the Allied military expedition to Italy, sketches a vivid picture of the 1944 eruption, drawing on eye-witness statements and capturing the atmosphere of the time. For a reassessment of its course and impact, see Cole and Scarpati (2010); Cubellis, Marturano, Pappalardo (2016). 21 Lewis (1982) ch.1. 22 De Vivo and Rolandi (2019) 473. 23 Merrill (1918, 1920); Sparks (1973) 134; Sigurdsson, Cashdollar, Sparks (1982) 41. 24 Abdy (2013). 25 Breglia (1950); compare the case-study of I.x by Giove (2003). 26 The following analysis of the eruption is indebted to Sigurdsson, Cashdollar, Sparks (1982); Carey and Sigurdsson (1987); Scandone, Giacomelli, Gasparini (1993); Papale and Dobran (1993); De Vivo Pescatore and Sigurdsson (1993); Scandone (1995); Varone and Marturano (1997); Luongo, Perrotta, Scarpati (1999); Cioni, Marianelli, Santacroce, Sbrana (2000) 485–6; Sigurdsson and Carey (2002); Gurioli, Houghton, Cashman, Cioni (2005); Sigurdsson (2007); Shea, Gurioli, Houghton, Cioni, Cashman (2011); Scarpati, Perrotta, Martellone, Osanna (2020); Foss (2022) 148–58. Exact timings of the eruption remain hypothetical: Lazer (2009) 81–4. 27 Findley (1981) 7, 17. 28 Luongo, Perrotta, Scarpati (2003). 29 Della Corte (1939) 227. 30 Fiorelli (1860) Part 3, 203: 5 May 1818. 31 Scarpati, Perrotta, Martellone, Osanna (2020). 32 Cioni, Gurioli, Lanza, Zanella (2004). 33 Lewis (1982) 32. 34 Shea, Gurioli, Houghton, Cioni, Cashman (2011). 35 De Carolis, Patricelli, Ciarallo (1998) 78–113; Luongo, Perrotta, Scarpatia, De Carolis, Patricelli, Ciarallo (2003). 36 Luongo, Perrotta, Scarpatia, De Carolis, Patricelli, Ciarallo (2003) 169; Lazer (2009) 76–8. 37 Maiuri (1950) 14. 38 Luongo, Perrotta, Scarpatia, De Carolis, Patricelli, Ciarallo (2003) 178, fig.5; De Carolis, Patricelli, Raimondi Cominesi (2013).

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39 Mastrolorenzo, Petrone, Pappalardo, Guarino (2010); cf. Lazer (2009) 84–90. 40 De Carolis, Patricelli, Ciarallo (1998) 78–113. 41 Varone and Marturano (1997) 62–5. 42 Varone and Marturano (1997) 58. 43 Sigurdsson (2002) 33–5. This theme is explored in more detail in Chapter One of the first edition of this book. 44 Cooley and Cooley (2014) 39. 45 Adam (1986) 72–6; Ruggieri (2019) ch.6. 46 Allison (2004) ch.2; Anderson (2011); Poehler (2011). 47 Dio Cassius 66.23.4; Cooley and Cooley (2014) 50–1. 48 Barbante, Kehrwald, Marianelli, Vinther, Steffensen, Cozzi, Hammer, Clausen, Siggaard-Andersen (2013). 49 Carlino (2019) 235. 50 Pesaresi, Marta, Palagiano, Scandone (2008). 51 Carlino (2019) 183. 52 De Vivo and Rolandi (2019) 473. 53 Cooley and Cooley (2014) 55. 54 Sigurdsson (1999) 70.

Chapter 2 1

Libretto by Caterino Mazzolà, based on Pietro Metastasio (trans. A. E. Cooley).

2

Maiuri (1929) 7.

3

Cassius Dio 66.24.3–4; Suetonius, Life of Titus 8.4. Translated in Cooley and Cooley (2014) 52–3.

4

Naples: CIL X 1481; Nola: AE 1994, 413; Nuceria: AE 1994, 404 + AE 2002, 337; Salerno: AE 1991, 430; Sorrento: AE 1902, 40.

5

Cerulli Irelli (1975) 295–6; Descoeudres (1993) 169–71; Zevi (1994) 51–6. Such holes are clearly illustrated in the ‘House of the Menander’: Maiuri (1932) 175, fig.83. Tunnelling is documented in I.ix.12, room 4: Berry (1997) 112, 118, with further examples illustrated by Allison (2004) 179–82 and Parslow (1995) 113–15.

6

CIL IV 2311; de Vos and de Vos (1982) 192.

7

Bonucci (1827) 33.

8

Winckelmann (2011) 74–5, on CIL X 3714. On the moving about of statues in late antiquity, compare Lepelley (1994) 5–15.

9

Maiuri (1932) 176; Ling (1997) 10; Lazer (2009) 10–14, 94–5.

10 Varone and Marturano (1997) 65. 11 Ling (1997) 11.

128

NOTES TO PAGES 28–33

12 Cerulli Irelli (1975) 295, 298. 13 Ostrow (1990) 40. 14 De’ Spagnolis Conticello (1993–4) 147. 15 Osanna (2019) 293–5, with fig.19. 16 Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.7.2; translated with comment by Cooley and Cooley (2014) 52 (hereafter ‘= Cooley and Cooley (2014)’). 17 CIL III 14214; for further discussion of the war memorial at Adamclissi, including its date (ad 85/87 or 101/2) see Cooley (2012) 67–71. 18 Marco Simón (1978) 122 no. B16. The Popidii at Pompeii: Castrén (1975) no. 318. Temple of Isis inscription: CIL X 846 = Cooley and Cooley (2014) 41. 19 Statius, Silvae 4.8.3–5 = Cooley and Cooley (2014) 54. 20 Coleman (1988) 209 and PIR 2 IV I no. 430 for Julius Menecrates. 21 Possible evidence for relocation to Ostia is discussed by Tuck (2020). This paragraph is indebted to the work of Steven Tuck, who kindly sent me his chapter (in press) in advance of publication. 22 Curtis (1984) and (1988). 23 Statius, Silvae 4.4.78-85 = Cooley and Cooley (2014) 54; Newlands (2010) 113–16. 24 Statius, Silvae 5.3.205-8 = Cooley and Cooley (2014) 55. 25 Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 3.208–10, 4.507–9; Silius Italicus, Punic Wars 8.653–5 = Cooley and Cooley (2014) 55. 26 Tertullian, Apology 40 = Cooley and Cooley (2014) 57. 27 Granado (1995) – Pacian, Sermo de paenitentibus 11.5–6. 28 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.48 = Cooley and Cooley (2014) 56. 29 Tacitus, Annals 4.67. 30 Florus, Epitome 1.11.5. 31 Statius, Silvae 3.5 = Cooley and Cooley (2014) 54; Newlands (2010) 111–13. 32 Alagi (1971). 33 Transcript of news broadcast, 1980 Eruption Of Mount St. Helens ‘Seemed Apocalyptic’ : NPR: www.npr.org/transcripts/854829288?t=1643280931208 (accessed 27 Jan. 22). 34 Wagner (2020) Prologue. 35 Thornton (2000) 1061–2. 36 Dale and Crisafulli (2018) esp. 14 on biodiversity. 37 The relevant archaeological evidence is reviewed by Pagano (1995–6); De Carolis (1997); Soricelli (1997); De Carolis (1998); Soricelli (2001); Camardo (2013). 38 Grattan and Torrence (2007). 39 Sogliano (1915), whose proposal was peremptorily dismissed by Maiuri (1950) 21 and criticized again by Castiglione Morelli del Franco (1993) 663. The area is marked on Pagano (1995–96) fig.1, no. 30.

NOTES TO PAGES 33–40

129

40 De Simone and Russell (2019) 369–72; Soricelli (2001). 41 De Carolis (1989). 42 Pagano (1995–6) fig.1, no. 31. 43 De’ Spagnolis Conticello (1994) 53, 78, 94–6 argues that a road was put in place above the one destroyed in the eruption more or less immediately afterwards. 44 Milestones: CIL X 6940, 6939. 45 Desbat and Savay-Guerraz (1990); Soricelli (1997) 146–7. 46 De Simone and Russell (2019) 359–68. 47 Cassiodorus, Miscellany, ‘Variae’, 4.50. 48 Fiorelli (1860) 1: 23 March 1748. 49 Bosio (1983) 102, fig.31. The complex chronological layers of the tabula are analysed by Salway (2001) 22–6, 44, 58. 50 Lyons and Reed (2007) fig.1. 51 Mattusch (2013b) 2. 52 Carrara (1948); Kidwell (1993) 101. 53 Kidwell (1993) 45. 54 Kidwell (1993) 111–12. 55 Kidwell (1993) 135–6. 56 On the various discoveries made before official excavations began, see Bowersock (1978). 57 D. Russo (1991) Chapter 3; CIL X 928, 952; Rowland (2014) 31–2. 58 Schnapp (2013) 15. 59 Fiorelli (1851) viii; Macrinus (1693) 32–7. 60 Fiorelli (1851) i. 61 Winckelmann (2011) 76. 62 Latapie (1953) 226, 233–4; Mascoli and Vallet (1993).

Chapter 3 1

Maiorini (1996) 261–4, no.216.

2

Litchfield (1981); Carpanetto (1987); Acton (1957) ch.1; Astarita (2013b); Musi (2013).

3

De Caro (1996) 11.

4

Bauman (1994) 53; Oresko (1997) 160–1.

5

Hanlon (2000) 340.

6

On Louis XIV: Carter (1994) 35; Savage (1994) 367. Teatro di San Carlo: Bauman (1994) 47, 50; Rosselli (1994) 461; DelDonna (2013) 368–71.

7

Acton (1957) 47–9, 77–81.

8

Valerio (2013).

130

9

NOTES TO PAGES 40–4

Haskell and Penny (1981) 66.

10 Pozzi Paolini (1977) 2–3; Haskell and Penny (1981) 76–7. 11 Oresko (1997) 152. 12 Harder (1981) 85. 13 Venturi (1962) 292. 14 Mincuzzi (1967); Ajello and D’Addio (1986). 15 Coppini and Nieri (1980) 239–40, no.160: 9 May 1747. On classical allusions in Tanucci’s letters, see Migliorini (1982) xx; Ferrari (1997) 154–8 no.123: 3 May 1763. 16 Clay (1979) 45. 17 Knight (2013); J. E. Moore (2013). 18 Fiorelli (1860) 228–30: 7 April 1769; cf. Acton (1957) 144–5 for an account of the same events by the emperor himself. 19 Allroggen-Bedel and Kammerer-Grothaus (1983). 20 1755 edict transcribed by Van der Poel and Poli Capri (1994) xxviii–xxxii. On the Vatican’s policy, see Bignamini (1996) 33. 21 On tensions between the court’s approach and Enlightenment aims, see Schnapp (2013) 28. 22 Murga (1986); Strazzullo (1998) 11–17. Tanucci’s letters on the topic: Maiorini (1988) 387–92 no.351: 22 Dec. 1761; Lollini (1990) 526–9 no.503: 9 Nov. 1762. 23 Maiorini (1988) 337–41 no.297: 1 Dec. 1761. 24 Lollini (1990) 73–6 no.65: 20 Apr. 1762. 25 Maiorini (1988) 392 n.17. 26 Lollini (1990) 469–73 no.457: 19 Oct. 1762; 755–8 no.731: 22 Feb. 1763. 27 Winckelmann’s view of Paderni shifted over time: Strazzullo (1998) 9. 28 Lollini (1990) 43–7 no.35: 6 Apr. 1762; Maiorini (1985) 724–30 no.576: 9 Jun. 1761. 29 Strazzullo (1998) 72–4, no.XXVII: Paderni to Tanucci, 18 Nov. 1763. 30 Strazzullo (1998) 78 no.XXXII: 25 Jan. 1764; Fiorelli (1860) Vol.1, part 2, addenda: 146: 25 Jan. 1764. 31 Criticism of Paderni’s treatment of paintings: Fiorelli (1860) Vol.1, part 2, addenda: 146: 12 Nov. 1763 and 25 Jan. 1764; D’Alconzo (2002) 48–54; Parslow (2007) 8; Burlot (2012) 55–7. 32 Parslow (1988), (1995–6), (2001), (2017), (2018). 33 Maiorini (1988) 392 n.17. 34 Parslow (2007) 9. 35 Pagano (1997) 103–4. 36 Jenkins (1996) 42. 37 Latapie (1953) 244. 38 De Clarac (1813) 5.

NOTES TO PAGES 44–9

131

39 Guarino (2013). 40 Kockel (1983) 57–8. 41 Dwyer (2013) 255; Fiorelli (1860) Part 1, 229–31, 7 Apr. 1769. 42 Jacobelli (2008c); Fiorelli (1862) Part 4, 218–19: 27 Feb. 1829 for Ludwig I. 43 Shell (1996). 44 De Lucia (1985) 569 n.6; Maiorini (1985) 779–81 no.628: 30 Jun. 1761. 45 Caròla Perrotti (1978) 19. 46 Najbjerg (2007) 63. 47 Lollini (1990) 343–7 no.334: 24 Aug. 1762. 48 Ferrari (1997) 100–4 no.79: 12 Apr. 1763; Chiosi (1986) 506. 49 Parslow (2007) 11; Forcellino (1993). 50 Parslow (2007) 17. 51 De Lucia (1985) 637–8 no.548: 7 Feb. 1758; Maiorini (1985) 779–81 no.628: 30 Jun. 1761; Maiorini (1988) 222–3 no.186: 20 Oct. 1761; Maiorini (1996) 38–40 no.25: 8 Jan. 1765. 52 De Lucia (1985) 654–6 no.566: 14 Feb. 1758; 658–60 no.569: 14 Feb. 1758; 688–90 no.604: 25 Feb. 1758; 838 no.748: 2 May 1758; 880 no.791: 23 May 1758; 897–9 no.807: 30 May 1758. 53 Maiorini (1988) 222–3: 20 Oct. 1761. 54 Maiorini (1985) 779–81 no.628: 30 Jun. 1761. 55 Caserta volume: Maiorini (1985) 403–5, no.320: 29 Oct. 1757; 624–5 no.534: 31 Jan. 1758; 688–90 no.604: 25 Feb. 1758; 820–2 no.732: 25 Apr. 1758; 827–9 no.740: 29 Apr. 1758; 880 no.791: 23 May 1758. 56 Maiorini (1985) 892–4 no.803: 27 May 1758. 57 De Lucia (1985) 880 no.791: 23 May 1758; Maiorini (1985) 30 Jun. 1761. 58 Pinot de Villechenon (2000) 74; Jenkins (1996) 43. 59 D’Alconzo (2015) 15; Lyons and Reed (2007) 136–40. 60 Nicolini (1914) Vol.1: 198–201, no.XC: 3 Nov. 1764; Allroggen-Bedel (1986) 531–2. 61 Reale Accademia Ercolanese di Archeologia (1773) iii–xi: ‘The subscribers’ names’; v: ‘The translators’ preface’. 62 De la Roque (1783) 60; Grell (1982) 57. 63 Maiorini (1985) 176–80 no.128: 9 Dec. 1760. 64 Grell (1982) 3. 65 Goethe [1816] (1892) 188: 11 March 1787. 66 Burlot (2012) 41–2. 67 Mincuzzi (1967) ch.6; Coyer (1775) 233. 68 Maiorini (1996) 439 n.10. 69 Maiorini (2003) 213–17 no.137: 27 May 1766; 232–5 no.150: 2 Jun. 1766. 70 De Caro (1992) 12.

132

NOTES TO PAGES 49–56

71

Fiorelli (1860) 228–30.

72

Hamilton (1777) plate VI, 8–11.

73

Harder (1981) 152–3; Dumont (2007) 58–60.

74

Lalande (1769) 209; (1786) 548–9.

75

De Saint-Non (1782) tav. 75 bis; Pappalardo (2006).

76

Barthélemy (1802) 77: Letter 13, 2 Feb. 1756.

77

Bellucci and Moormann (2019).

78

Gordon (2007).

79

Maiorini (2003) 375–9 no.259: 12 Aug. 1766.

80

Chard (2007).

81

[Miller] (1776) 302–6: Letter 36; Cooley (2014) 344–6.

82

[Miller] (1776) 302–6: Letter 36; Cooley (2014) 344–6.

83

Bignamini (1996) 31–6; Salmon (2000) 219.

84

Grell (1982) 5–8.

85

Harder (1981) 58–62; Jonard (1994) 17–25.

86

Causa (1981).

87

Latapie (1953) 225.

88

Barthélemy (1802) 33: Letter 5, 5 Nov. 1755; 41: Letter 6, 11 Nov. 1755; 100–3: Letter 16, 17 Feb. 1756; 320–5: their authenticity; 322: the King of Naples.

89

Goethe [1816] (1892) 330: 27 May 1787.

90

Soane (2000) 77, with note ad loc.

91

Ascione (1989).

92

Hackert’s style: Acton (1957) 215; his privileged position at court: Goethe [1816] (1892) 176: 28 Feb. 1787 and 168–9, 15 March 1787; his Pompeian scenes: catalogue entries by I. Bignamini, ‘Jakob Philipp Hackert: The Ruins of Pompeii’, ‘View of the Theatre, Pompeii’, ‘View of the Interior of the Temple of Isis, Pompeii’, in Wilton and Bignamini (1996) 231–2 nos 179–81; Gardner Coates, Lapatin, Seydl (2012) 182–3 no.54.

93

Praz (1969) 70–90; Wilton-Ely (1989); Ramage (2013).

94

De Martini (1981); González-Palacios (1981); Caròla Perrotti (1978) 3–9.

95

D’Alconzo (2015) 25–6; Caròla-Perrotti (1986b).

96

Museo Capodimonte inv. 468; Caròla-Perrotti (1986a) 334, catalogue no.261; The Golden Age of Naples (1981) vol.2: 394, catalogue no.139.

97

González-Palacios (1981).

98

Wilton-Ely (1989) 55.

99

D’Alconzo (2017).

100 Nicolini (1914) vol.2: 92–4 no.XXX: 11 Jul. 1767; Chiosi (1986) 507–8. 101 Spinosa (1981); Carrió-Invernizzi (2013) 399–401; D’Alconzo (2015); Roettgen (2013). 102 Dodero (2019) 19.

NOTES TO PAGES 56–63

133

103 Burn (1997). 104 Mincuzzi (1969) 713. 105 D’Alconzo (2015) 33. 106 Jacobelli (2008b) 28–9. 107 Ackerman (1923) 43–6; Karson and Consey (1977); catalogue in the same volume, 19 no.15 illustrates Pompeian wallpaper made in c. 1800 by an unknown French maker. 108 D’Alconzo (2015) 26–7.

Chapter 4 1

Dumas (1861) ch.20: 154.

2

Davis (2006) ch.4.

3

Descamps-Lequime (2013) 144–9.

4

Carelli (1803); Boyer (1969) 193–6.

5

Acton (1957) 286–8, 463–4; on Napoleon’s systematic cultural appropriations: Boyer (1969) 77–89, Haskell and Penny (1981) 108–16.

6

Boyer (1969) 195.

7

Filangieri di Candida (1901).

8

Davis (2006) ch.7.

9

Fiorelli (1860) part 2, 77: 2 March 1806; proclamation transcribed in Van der Poel and Poli Capri (1994) xxxix.

10 Spaletti (1929) 83–5, 192–3. 11 Jacobelli (2008c) 45–9. 12 Documents relating to the Murats transcribed in Adamo Muscettola (2001). 13 Fiorelli (1860) Part 3, 10: 27 October, 5 November 1808. 14 Lyons and Reed (2007) 140–1; Ossanna Cavadini (2018) 43. 15 Spaletti (1929) 86; Davis (2006) 142; Acton (1957) 565, 634–7. 16 Fiorelli (1862) Part 4, 217: Nov./Dec. 1828; 218–19: February 1829. 17 Kovacs (2013) 35; on Gell, R. Sweet (2015), Esposito (2018). 18 Winkes (1993). 19 Van der Poel (1983) xix; Acton (1961) 137. 20 Reinhold (1985). 21 Acton (1961) 140, 145; Withey (1998) 64–5; Rowland (2014) ch.9. 22 Acton (1961) 160, 170, 175. 23 Scatozza Höricht (1987a); de Angelis (1993); Van der Poel and Poli Capri (1994) viii–xviii; Castiglione Morelli (1999); Desrochers (2003) 118–19; Dwyer (2010) 25–31; Rowland (2014) ch.11. 24 De Caro (1999) 5–6; Milanese (1999) 71; de Angelis (1993) 6–7. 25 Acton (1961) 161–2.

134

NOTES TO PAGES 63–71

26 Fiorelli (1849) 2. 27 De Petra (1896). For the Count’s letter to the King, see Dumas (1861) 137–8. 28 De Caro (1999) 11; Adamo Muscettola (2001) 31–2. 29 For criticisms of Bonucci, see Fiorelli (1849) 3–11. 30 Milanese (1999) 71–2, 74. 31 Acton (1961) 203–5, 212–14, 223. 32 Milanese (1999) 75. 33 This letter is cited by De Caro (1999) 9–10. 34 Acton (1961) 232–45. 35 See Pagano (1994) for full transcription and analysis of the law. 36 Fiorelli (1849). 37 Rispoli (1987) 512. 38 Milanese (1999) 73, 91–2; De Caro (1999) 20. 39 De Angelis (1993) 6–7. 40 Scatozza Höricht (1987a) 869. 41 Ritschl (1862). 42 Printed privately for the Count of Syracuse, then reprinted in the Bullettino archeologico napolitano n.s.7 (1858–59) 11–13; cited in de Angelis (1993) 7. 43 Collezione delle leggi e de’ decreti emanati nelle provincie continentali dell’Italia meridionale durante il periodo della Dittatura, dal 7 settembre a’ 6 novembre 1860 (Naples: Tipografia nazionale, 1860) 20: Decree no.34; 46: Decree no.53; 326: Decree no.130. 44 Miraglia (1982) 325 no.82; García y García (2008); Schwegman (2008); Ugolini (2017). 45 On Dumas in Naples, see Boyer (1960); Ridley (1983); Collet (1994); Schwegman (2008); Esposito (2008). 46 Dumas (1861) ch.1: 11–12. 47 Dumas (1861) ch.14: 106; ch.15: 110. 48 Dumas (1861) ch.20: 154. 49 Bordone (1891) 364–6. 50 Du Camp (1883) 249–54. 51 Ridley (1983) 270; Collet (1994) 150–3. 52 Dumas (1978) chs 36–41. 53 Esposito (2008) 74 n.9. 54 Ridley (1983) 266–8, 284. 55 Summary of Fiorelli’s career in Van der Poel and Poli Capri (1994) viii–xviii; evaluation of his reforms in Dwyer (2010) ch.2. 56 Adamo Muscettola (1999) 145–6. 57 De Caro (1999) 19. 58 Pirson (1999) 26, 34.

NOTES TO PAGES 71–8

135

59 Reprinted in Van der Poel and Poli Capri (1994) xix–xxvii [originally, G. Fiorelli, Giornale degli scavi di Pompei (Naples: Stamperia della R. Università, 1861)]. 60 Fiorelli (1875) 17. 61 De Caro (1996) 105; David (1997). 62 Scatozza Höricht (1987a) 872–3. 63 Latapie (1953) 244. 64 De Caro (1999) 19. 65 Poli Capri (1998) Vol.1: 73–4 (Letter from Minister of Public instruction to Fiorelli, 26 June 1862) and 106–10 (Reply from Fiorelli, 20 March 1863); Beard (2013) 214. 66 Poli Capri (1998) Vol. 1: 80, 17 May 1868 and 81, 20 May 1868 (both letters from Fiorelli to Minister of Public Instruction); Lyons (2005) 54. 67 Minervini (1853). 68 Desrochers (2003); Gardner Coates (2012a) 46. 69 Baedeker (1867) 133; Kovacs (2013) 42. 70 Adamo Muscettola (1999) 154. 71 Scatozza Höricht (1987b) 822. 72 De Petra (1896) 116. On Fiorelli’s national profile, see Gasparri (1999), Emiliani (1999).

Chapter 5 1

Baedeker (1880) 123–4. In Baedeker (1867) 128, the same guidebook recommended three hours as the minimum.

2

Van der Poel and Poli Capri (1994) cxix.

3

Davis (1997) 191.

4

Withey (1998) 153–5.

5

Reinhold (1985) 115; Daly (2011) 281 n.9; Sketchley [Rose] (1870) 112.

6

Romanelli (1811) 2; 10; 93–4, 146–9.

7

Illustrated London News (1846a).

8

Willis (1844) 91–3: Letter 63. Compare Cassius Dio 66.23, with Romanelli (1811) 25.

9

Cited in Moormann (2003) 40–1.

10 Moormann (2003) 35–6. 11 Blewitt (1853) 326; on middle-class sentimental responses to Italy, see Palmowski (2002); Clay (1976) 21. 12 Willis (1844) 91–2: Letter 63. 13 On photography at Pompeii: Conticello (1990); Cassanelli (1997); Desrochers (2003); Lyons (2005); Lyons and Reed (2007) 145–51; Gardner Coates (2012a); Miraglia and Osanna (2015); Callegrari (2017); De Carolis (2018).

136

NOTES TO PAGES 78–86

14 Maffioli (1990) 33; Conticello (1990) plate XVIII. 15 Desrochers (2003) 111. 16 Howells (1883) 125; Moormann (2003) 41; Gardner Coates, Lapatin, Seydl (2012) 221–4. 17 [Murray] (1865) 214. 18 Bergeret de Grancourt (1948) 104–5; Einberg (1996a). Compare his dramatic painting of the 1779 eruption: Civiltà del ’700 a Napoli (1979) Vol.1, 344 no. 186. 19 Daly (2011) 261–2. 20 Gardner Coates, Lapatin, Seydl (2012) 126–7 no.19 and 130–1 no.21. 21 Einberg (1996b). 22 Nicolson (1968) 75–81, 254–5, 279–84; Civiltà del ’700 a Napoli (1979) Vol.1, 352 nos 191–2; Causa (1981) 202–3. 23 Einberg (1996c); Cheetham (1984). 24 Daly (2011) 263. 25 Philadelphia Museum of Art, inv.E1972-3-1. 26 Rosenthal (1979); Behlman (2007) 160–1; Dwyer (2007) 176; Seydl (2012) 21; Gardner Coates, Lapatin, Seydl (2012) 138–9 no.25. 27 State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg, Zh-5084; Susinno et al. (2003) 368–9; Gardner Coates, Lapatin, Seydl (2012) 140–2 no.26; Rowland (2014) 129–35; Samu (2021). 28 Gogol [1834] (1982) 203–10. 29 Jacobelli (2008a) 12–13. 30 Daly (2011) 264; Kovacs (2013) 35; Gardner Coates, Lapatin, Seydl (2012) 197–9. 31 Easson (2004) 101. Born Edward Bulwer, he adopted the name Bulwer-Lytton in 1844: Brown (2004). 32 Lytton (1913) 440. 33 Goldhill (2012) 98. 34 Clay (1976) 155; S. Harrison (2011) 76–7. 35 Lytton (1873) Book One, ch.3; S. Harrison (2011) 76–82. 36 Daly (2011) 274. 37 Clay (1979) 64. 38 R. Sweet (2015). 39 Gell and Gandy (1817–19) xvi; Esposito (2018); Gell and Gandy (1817–19) plate 77; Gell (1832) Vol.2, plate 52. 40 R. Sweet (2015) 256–8. 41 Lytton (1873) 420; S. Harrison (2011) 81–2. 42 Lytton (1913) 445–6. 43 Sala (1869) 426; Kovacs (2013) 37.

NOTES TO PAGES 86–92

137

44 Baedeker (1869) 124. 45 St Clair and Bautz (2012) 387, 392 n.54. 46 Goldhill (2012). 47 T. Sweet (1996); Mills (2016). 48 Easson (2004) 109–11. 49 Illustrated London News (1846b). 50 Daly (2011) 274; Reimers (2012) 185–6; St Clair and Bautz (2012); SchlangeSchöningen (2012). 51 Zimmerman (2008), ch.4. 52 Lytton (1913) 446. 53 Kovacs (2013) 37; St Clair and Bautz (2012) 367–70. 54 Gardner Coates, Lapatin, Seydl (2012) 200–2; Kovacs (2013) 37. 55 Gregory (1899) 246. 56 Quilitzsch (2005) 149–52. 57 Altick (1978) 96. 58 Pichot (1825) 123; Seydl (2012) 19; Gardner Coates, Lapatin, Seydl (2012) 132–3, no.22. 59 Altick (1978) 137–40. 60 London Panorama, Leicester Square (1845). 61 Illustrated London News (1848). 62 St Clair and Bautz (2012) 371–4. 63 Illustrated London News (1844). 64 Altick (1978) 323–5; Daly (2011) 271. 65 Gardner Coates, Lapatin, Seydl (2012) 227–9. 66 Yablon (2007) 191, fig.3. 67 Mayer (1984–85); Minneapolis Tribune (1890a), (1890b). 68 Altick (1978) 1, 4. 69 The Athenaeum 21 Jan. 1854: 92–3. 70 Phillips (1854) 100. 71 Scharf (1854) 21–2, 33–7. 72 Auerbach (1999) 202. 73 Illustrated London News (1855). 74 Scharf (1854) 44–68. 75 Piggott (2004) esp. 98–102; Lapatin (2012) 34–5. 76 Scharf (1854) 72–3. 77 Stern (1890); Gardner Coates and Seydl (2007b) 6–7. 78 All the Year Round (1884) 44 – ‘A Last Day at Pompeii’ 18 Oct. 1884: 41–5. 79 Stähli (2012). 80 Wyke (1997) 158; Pesando (2003).

138

NOTES TO PAGES 93–8

Chapter 6 1

Shelley (1844) Vol.2: 279.

2

Fiorelli (1860) 2; Addenda 4: 134.

3

Latapie (1953) 238–40.

4

Maiorini (1988) 373–6, no.334: 15 Dec. 1761; Lollini (1990) 102–7, no.97: 4 May 1762; 132–6, no.128: 18 May 1762; 401–4, no.393: 21 Sep. 1762.

5

Fiorelli (1860) 229–30.

6

Lazer (2009) 5; Dwyer (2010) 7–8.

7

Latapie (1953) 228; Hamilton (1777) 6–7, plate IV.

8

Compare P. M. Allison, Online Companion to Pompeian Households ‘Room 3, showing remains of bread oven’ – Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e La Documentazione, GFN N62707, reprinted courtesy of the Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, (ID: ph36_06): https://web.archive.org/web/ 20070104231158/http://www.stoa.org/projects/ph/image?houseid=29 [accessed 18 May 2022].

9

Gemmett (2006) 177.

10 Baum (2011). 11 Saint-Non (1782) Vol.1.1, tav. 89; Bellucci and Moorman (2019) 164. 12 Mazois (1824) Vol.2, plate 34; Gardner Coates, Lapatin, and Seydl (2012) 191–3, no.61.1. 13 Overbeck (1856) 28, fig.3. 14 Mau (1908) 366, fig.195. 15 Moormann (2001) 13–15. 16 Fiorelli (1860) 268–70; Moormann (2015) 180-5. 17 Saint-Non (1782) Vol.2: 129; Dupaty (1788) 320. 18 Clay (1979) 70; Dwyer (2010) 9–12. 19 Thomas (2017) 306–7. 20 Twain (1869) ch.31. 21 Blix (2009) 209–16. 22 Gautier (1860). 23 Hales (2016). 24 The Quarterly Review (1864) 322. 25 Gardner Coates (2012b) 71; Moormann (2015) 183. 26 CIL X 994–5. 27 Fiorelli (1860) 152–3: 13 Aug. 1763; Part 2 Addenda, 113; Kockel (1983) 47–51. 28 Winckelmann (2011) 176. 29 Moormann (2001) 11–13; Behlman (2007); Lazer (2009) 14–15; Dwyer (2010) 12–13; Moormann (2015) 185–9. 30 Starke (1802) Vol.2, 105.

NOTES TO PAGES 99–107

139

31 Clay (1979) 61. 32 Gell and Gandy (1817–19) 94. 33 Overbeck (1856) 27. 34 Moormann (2015) 186–7. 35 Twain (1869) ch.31. 36 Breton (1855) 94–5. 37 Dyer (1868) 531; Baedeker (1873) 230; Baedeker (1880) 137. 38 De Caro (1999) 9–10. 39 Behlman (2007) 158. 40 Behlman (2007); Gardner Coates, Lapatin, and Seydl (2012) 150–2, no.31. 41 Gustin (forthcoming). 42 The Times (1878) 12. 43 Lazer (2009) 248. 44 Lazer et al. (2021) 110–30. 45 Lazer (2009) ch.10; Dwyer (2010) 1–3, 43–9; Osanna (2016). 46 Italian text in Dwyer (2010) 125–6. 47 Dwyer (2010) 48. 48 Settembrini (1879) 336; Dwyer (2010) 48–52. 49 Gardner Coates, Lapatin, and Seydl (2012) 48, fig.29. 50 The Quarterly Review (1864) 332; Thomas (2017) 307; Lazer (2009) 251. 51 Dwyer (2010) 53–6. 52 Lazer (2009) 9, 254–8; Dwyer (2010) 53–5, 121–2; Lazer et al. (2021) 130–1. 53 Osanna (2019) 302–3. 54 Settembrini (1879) 336. 55 Gardner Coates, Lapatin, and Seydl (2012) 217–20; Lazer (2009) 251–3. 56 Howells (1883) 124. 57 Lazer (2009) 255–6, with figs 10.7–10.8; cf. Melotti (2008) 99. 58 Lazer et al. (2021) 110–11. 59 Lazer et al. (2021). 60 Lazer et al. (2021) 111–13, conclusion quoted from 132. 61 Lazer (2009) ch.3. 62 Lazer (2009) 99–116, 161. 63 Lazer (2009) 153, 161–2, 165–6. 64 Lazer (2009) 194–6, cf. 200–2 on osteophytic change. 65 Lazer (2009) 266–7. 66 Henneberg and Henneberg (2002) 174. 67 Settembrini (1879): 334–5. 68 Lazer et al. (2021). 69 De Franciscis (1988) 23; Di Bernardo et al. (2009).

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NOTES TO PAGES 107–12

70 Di Bernardo et al. (2009) 430, 433 table 1. 71 Di Bernardo et al. (2009) 434–5; Lazer (2009) 32–5. 72 De Franciscis (1988) 20–1, 32–3.

Chapter 7 1

The Times (1837) 16552, 1: 20 Oct. 1837.

2

Prisco (2008).

3

Maiorini (1985) 263–9 no.187: 6 Jan. 1761; 746–50 no.596: 16 Jun. 1761; 804–8 no.648: 7 Jul. 1761; 848–52 no.691: 21 Jul. 1761; 867–3 no. 706: 28 Jul. 1761; 891–5 no.728: 4 Aug. 1761; 911–16: 11 Aug. 1761; Maiorini (1988) 98–103 no.74: 8 Sep. 1761; 206–11 no.170: 13 Oct. 1761.

4

Prisco (2008) 194–202; Winckelmann (2011) 78.

5

Temple of Isis: Sampaolo (1992); Estate of Julia Felix: Parslow (1995) ch.4.

6

Leander Touati and Cederlöf (2016) 156.

7

Illustrated in Gell and Gandy (1817–19), plate 75 and in paintings by Francesco Morelli: Sampaolo (2021) and online at PompeiiinPictures, https:// www.pompeiiinpictures.com/pompeiiinpictures/R2/2 06 00 p4.htm (accessed 30 Apr. 2022); Fiorelli (1860) Part 3, 179: 3 Feb. 1816.

8

Strazzullo (1998) 75 no.XXVIII, 21 Nov. 1763: ASN, Casa reale antica, fascio 1541, inc. 8/31; Clay (1979) 64; D’Alconzo (2002) 77–8.

9

Moormann (1991); D’Alconzo (2002).

10 Venuti (1748) 110–11; Bassi (1908) 320–3; D’Alconzo (2002) 28–33. 11 D’Alconzo (2002) 61–4; Prisco (2008) 189–93. 12 Strazzullo (1982) 337: ASN Casa reale antica fascio 719, 191. 13 Pagano (1997) 173; D’Alconzo (2002) 69–75, 77–91. 14 V. Russo (2018) 56–7. 15 Maiorini (2003) 213–17 no.137: 27 May 1766; 232–5 no.150: 2 Jun. 1766. 16 D’Alconzo (2002) 55–7, fig.28; Louis-Jean Desprez Temple of Isis in Pompeii c. 1777–78 Nationalmuseum Stockholm | artdone (wordpress.com); García y García (2006) 139–40, fig.334. 17 Fiorelli (1860) Part 2, 56: 4 Sep., 11–18 Sep 1794. 18 J. Moore (1781) Vol.2, 178–9. 19 Pagano (1994) 370; cf. Pagano (1991/2) 179. 20 Saint-Beuve (1859?–1861?) Vol. 6, 304–7, esp. 306. 21 Ossanna Cavadini (2018) 47. 22 The Times (1837); Blix (2009) 215. 23 Pagano (1994) 404: Regolamento del R. Museo Borbonico e degli scavi di antichità, Titolo II Degli scavi di antichità, ch.5, art.205. 24 Schwegman (2008) 10–12. 25 Blix (2009) 215.

NOTES TO PAGES 112–17

141

26 Falkener (1860) Vol.2: 35–89. 27 V. Russo (2018) 61. 28 Regolamento Temporaneo, 1861: Van der Poel and Poli Capri (1994) ch.3, xxii. 29 De Carolis (1990) 15–17; V. Russo (2018) 57–9. 30 Jashemski (1979) 32; Ciarallo (2012) 207. 31 Stefani, Galeandro, Argenti (2018) 284. 32 Miraglia (2015) 44, 143 no.117 ‘Giovine in abiti antichi Casa dei Vettii 1896–98’, 144 no.118 ‘Giovine vestito all’antica nel peristilio della Casa dei Vettii 1896–98’. 33 Ferroni, Flamini, Prisco (1997); Flamini et al. (2000); Stefani, Galeandro, Argenti (2018). 34 Sogliano (1901) 382. 35 Pollard (2020) ch.1. 36 Pollard (2020) chs 2–3. 37 García y García (2006) 17. 38 The Times (1943). 39 García y García (2006) 20–4; Pollard (2020) ch.6. 40 García y García (2006) 20–6, 31–5; Pollard (2020) ch.4. 41 Elia and Pugliese Carratelli (1979). 42 Picone (2018). 43 Beard (2013) 217. 44 Pozzolini-Siciliani (1879) 83–7. 45 Nature (1883); Beard (2013), 207–8; New York Times (1884). 46 The Athenaeum (1884); J. E. Harrison (1885) 98. 47 Performances for Pompeii Theatrum Mundi in June/July 2017: pompeiisites.org/en/events/pompeii-theatrum-mundi/ (accessed 11 May 2022). 48 Pinto (2013) 233–5, 241. 49 Pinto (2013) 236–7. 50 Pompei e gli architetti francesi dell’ottocento (1981)/ Pompéi. Travaux et envois des architectes français au XIX e siècle (1981). 51 Mascoli, Pinon, Vallet, Zevi (1981) 56–69. 52 Pinon (2018) 151–3; full list of Pompeian topics in Mascoli, Pinon, Vallet, Zevi (1981) 82–3. 53 Lyons (2005) 49. 54 Mascoli, Pinon, Vallet, Zevi (1981) 76–7, 115–37. 55 Barrow (2007) 43. 56 Barrow (2007); Murolo (2007). 57 Lawrence Alma-Tadema, ‘An Exedra’: Gardner Coates, Lapatin, and Seydl (2012) 102–3 no.8.

142

NOTES TO PAGES 117–23

58 Einberg (1996d); Civiltà del ’700 a Napoli (1979) 322 no.177. Neutsch (1975); Kockel (1983) 57–8; Cooley (2014) 342–3. 59 Gardner Coates, Lapatin, and Seydl (2012) 102–3 no.8. 60 Ascione (2003) 87, 89–90. 61 Betzer (2011); Nigidius Vaccula benches: CIL X 818. 62 Comes (1879). 63 Jashemski (2002) 4. 64 Ciarallo (2012) 178. 65 Bellini, Giordani, Nin (2008). 66 Ciarallo (2012) ch.9: 175–83 on the history of replanting gardens. 67 Ciarallo (2009) 105–6. 68 Jashemski (1979) 23. 69 Ciarallo (2009) 103. 70 Jashemski (1979) ch.10; Jashemski (1993) 89–90. 71 Jashemski (1979) 226–7. 72 Grimal (1984). 73 Jashemski (1993) 89–90. 74 Jashemski (1993) 73. 75 Jashemski (1979) 172–6; (1993) 51–2. Amphora label: Jashemski (1967) 37; AE (1967) 86d. Ciarallo (2009) 107 questions the spacing of the vines. 76 Bartolini and Mighetto (2021). 77 UNESCO World Heritage Convention: Archaeological areas of Pompei, Herculaneum and Torre Annunziata: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/829 (accessed 2 May 2022). 78 Visitor data – Pompeii Sites: pompeiisites.org/en/archaeological-park-ofpompeii/visitor-data/ (accessed 2 May 2022). 79 Zevi (1982). 80 Osanna (2018b) 105. 81 The Great Pompeii Project – Pompeii Sites: pompeiisites.org/en/the-greatpompeii-project/ (accessed 2 May 2022); Osanna and Picone (2018). 82 Osanna (2018a) 20; Osanna (2018b) 116–19. 83 Osanna (2018b) 108, 118–19. 84 Osanna and Rinaldi (2018a), (2018b). 85 Pompeii for all – Pompeii Sites accessed 3 May 2022; Filetici, Sirano, Vitagliano (2018); Osanna (2018b) 119. 86 Osanna (2019) chs 3–4, 9. 87 Osanna (2019) 146–51; contra, Foss (2022) 132–3. 88 Osanna (2018c); Bodel, et al. (2019); Osanna (2019) ch.8.

FURTHER READING

Introduction Out of the very many recent publications on Pompeii, excellent coverage is provided by R. Ling, Pompeii: History, Life, and Afterlife (2005); F. Pesando and M. P. Guidobaldi, Pompei, Oplontis, Ercolano, Stabiae (2006); J. Berry, The Complete Pompeii (2007); M. Beard, Pompeii. The life of a Roman town (2008). Exhibition catalogues contain rich discussion of cultural responses to the site: V. C. Gardner Coates, and J. L. Seydl (eds), Antiquity Recovered: The legacy of Pompeii and Herculaneum (2007a); V. C. Gardner Coates, K. Lapatin, and J. L. Seydl (eds), The Last Days of Pompeii: Decadence, apocalypse, resurrection (2012); C. C. Mattusch (ed.), Rediscovering the Ancient World on the Bay of Naples, 1710-1890 (2013a). Catalogues accompanying recent exhibitions at the British Museum and Ashmolean Museum focus upon the archaeological evidence: P. Roberts, Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum (2013); P. Roberts (ed.), Last Supper in Pompeii (2019). J. Harris, Pompeii Awakened: A study of rediscovery (2007) offers an entertaining exploration of the history of the excavations, but one that is marred by numerous factual mistakes. I. Rowland, From Pompeii: The afterlife of a Roman town (2014) offers glimpses of Pompeii as experienced by different visitors over the centuries. Scholarly approaches to the reception of the site over the last 250 years may be found in S. Hales and J. Paul (eds), Pompeii in the Public Imagination from Its Rediscovery to Today (2011) and E. Moormann, Pompeii’s Ashes: The reception of the cities buried by Vesuvius in literature, music, and drama (2015).

Chapter 1: The Destruction of Pompeii Pliny’s letters about the eruption may be found translated in A. E. Cooley and M. G. L. Cooley, Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (2014) 45–9. The literary qualities and biases of these letters are explored by N. F. Jones, ‘Pliny the Younger’s Vesuvius Letters (6.16 and 6.20)’ (2001). T. Keeline, ‘Model or anti-model? Pliny on Uncle Pliny’ (2018) argues that Pliny deliberately paints his uncle in an ambivalent light; R. Gibson, Man of High Empire: The life of Pliny the Younger (2020), chapter 4, ‘Campania’, sees these ambivalences as the result of attempts by Pliny to heroize his uncle. P. Foss, Pliny and the Eruption of Vesuvius (2022) 123–48 offers detailed evaluation of all of the evidence for dating the eruption, concluding in favour of August. The letters’ value as evidence for the eruption is assessed by H. Sigurdsson, S. Cashdollar, and S. R. J. Sparks, ‘The eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79: Reconstruction from historical and volcanological evidence’ (1982). 143

144

FURTHER READING

An overview of the course of the eruption is given by H. Sigurdsson and S. Carey, ‘The eruption of Vesuvius in AD. 79’ (2002) 37–64; H. Sigurdsson, ‘The environmental and geomorphological context of the volcano’ (2007); P. Foss, Pliny and the Eruption of Vesuvius (2022) 145–58. The impact of the pyroclastic density currents upon the fabric of Pompeii and its inhabitants is set out in G. Luongo, A. Perrotta, and C. Scarpati, ‘Impact of the AD 79 explosive eruption on Pompeii, I. Relations amongst the depositional mechanisms of the pyroclastic products, the framework of the buildings and the associated destructive events’ (2003) and G. Luongo, A. Perrotta, C. Scarpatia, E. De Carolis, G. Patricelli, and A. Ciarallo, ‘Impact of the AD 79 explosive eruption on Pompeii, II. Causes of death of the inhabitants inferred by stratigraphic analysis and areal distribution of the human casualties’ (2003). Analysis of the archaeological evidence for structural damage caused by earthquakes together with a detailed survey of architectural evidence for the Pompeians’ responses to earthquake damage is provided by J-P. Adam, ‘Observations techniques sur les suites du séisme de 62 à Pompéi’ (1986) and N. Ruggieri, Prima di quel giorno a Pompei. . .: Techniche costruttive, vulnerabilità sismica, riparazioni e rinforzi al tempo dell’eruzione del 79 d.C. (2019).

Chapter 2: A Broken Sleep For a different approach to Rome’s response to the eruption, exploring how paradoxically the eruption had less of an impact upon the contemporary Roman world than it continues to have upon the modern world, see P. M. Allison, ‘Recurring tremors: the continuing impact of the AD 79 eruption of Mt Vesuvius’ (2002). Evidence of tunnelling at Pompeii is discussed by P. M. Allison, Pompeian Households: An analysis of the material culture (2004) 179–82; C. Parslow, Rediscovering Antiquity: Karl Weber and the excavation of Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabiae (1995) 113–15. Ways of tracing the relocation of survivors of the eruption are set out by S. Tuck, ‘Refugees from the eruption of AD 79’ (in press). The chronology and extent of regeneration following the eruption are reviewed in two articles by G. Soricelli: ‘La regione vesuviana dopo l’eruzione del 79 d.C.’ (1997) and ‘La regione vesuviana tra secondo e sesto secolo d.C.’ (2001). Of fundamental importance for the region as a whole, though focused on Herculaneum, is D. Camardo, ‘Herculaneum from the AD 79 eruption to the medieval period: Analysis of the documentary, iconographic and archaeological sources, with new data on the beginning of exploration at the ancient town’ (2013). I. Rowland, From Pompeii: The afterlife of a Roman town (2014), chapter 2, ‘Before Pompeii: Kircher and Holste’, considers memories of Pompeii during the period before it was officially rediscovered in 1748. On the cultural context of Sannazaro, see C. Kidwell, Sannazaro and Arcadia (1993). For a rare contemporary description of the site in 1776, not long after the official excavations began, see F. Latapie, ‘Description des fouilles de Pompéi (a. 1776)’ (1953).

FURTHER READING

145

Chapter 3: The Re-awakening Political background to Bourbon Naples can be found in the detailed study by H. Acton, The Bourbons of Naples (1734-1825) (1957) and in J. A. Davis, Naples and Napoleon: Southern Italy and the European Revolutions 1780-1860 (2006) chapters 1–2. The main cultural features of the period are discussed in the two volumes, The Golden Age of Naples: Art and civilization under the Bourbons 1734-1805 (1981) and by R. Oresko, ‘Culture in the age of baroque and rococo’ (1997). The interrelation of politics, economy, society and culture in Bourbon Naples is explored in contributions in T. Astarita (ed.), A Companion to Early Modern Naples (2013a). The political significance of antiquity to the regime is considered by A. Allroggen-Bedel, ‘Archäologie und Politik: Herculaneum und Pompeji im 18 Jahrhundert’ (1996). On Tanucci’s career see R. Ajello and M. D’Addio, (eds), Bernardo Tanucci. Statista letterato giurista (1986). Changes in the way in which information about Pompeii was published and distributed are discussed and illustrated in the exhibition catalogue by P. Guzzo, M. R. Esposito, and N. Ossanna Cavadini (eds) Ercolano e Pompei. Visioni di una scoperta. Herculaneum and Pompeii. Visions of a Discovery (2018). Manuscript sources reveal differences in approach between Paderni, Weber and Alcubierre: M. Forcellino, ‘La formazione e il metodo di Camillo Paderni’ (1993); F. Strazzullo, Alcubierre-Weber-Paderni: un difficile ‘tandem’ nello scavo di Ercolano-Pompei-Stabia (1998); C. Parslow, ‘Camilo Paderni’s Monumenti antichi and archaeology in Pompeii in the 1760s’ (2007). C. Parslow has transformed our understanding of Weber’s approach in a series of articles: ‘Documents illustrating the excavations of the Praedia of Julia Felix in Pompeii’ (1988); ‘Additional documents illustrating the Bourbon excavations of the Praedia Iuliae Felicis in Pompeii’ (1995– 6); ‘The open-air excavations at Pompeii in the eighteenth century: new methods, new problems’ (2001); ‘Cut ‘n’ Paste: reconstructing the façades of the Praedia of Julia Felix in Pompeii’ (2017). An overview of the place of the Bourbon court at Naples within the Grand Tour can be found in A. Wilton and I. Bignamini, Grand Tour: The lure of Italy in the eighteenth century (1996). The excavation of the Temple of Isis, and early reactions to it are fully documented in S. De Caro, ed., Alla ricerca di Iside. Analisi, studi e restauri dell’Iseo pompeiano nel Museo di Napoli (1992). A special place in Neapolitan court life was held by Sir William Hamilton, as explored by I. Jenkins and K. Sloan, Vases and Volcanoes: Sir William Hamilton and his collection (1996). For general accounts of the impact of Pompeian neoclassical design see E. Colle, ‘L’evoluzione del gusto pompeiano in Europa’ (1997); P. D’Alconzo, ‘Facing antiquity, back and forth, in eighteenth-century Naples’ (2015). Specific aspects are discussed by J. Wilton-Ely ‘Pompeian and Etruscan tastes in the neo-classical country-house interior’ (1989); A. Caròla-Perrotti, (ed.) Le porcellane dei Borbone di Napoli. Capodimonte e Real Fabbrica Ferdinandea 1743-1806 (1986a).

Chapter 4: The Politics of Archaeology An account of Napoleonic rule over Naples is presented by J. A. Davis, Naples and Napoleon. Southern Italy and the European Revolutions 1780-1860 (2006), whilst the wider historical context of nineteenth-century Italy can be found in J. A. Davis, ‘Italy 1796-1870: The age of the Risorgimento’ (1997). The history of Bourbon

146

FURTHER READING

Naples is explored in depth by H. Acton in The Bourbons of Naples (1734-1825) (1957) and The Last Bourbons of Naples (1825-1861) (1961). The vicissitudes experienced by Alexandre Dumas in Naples are discussed by F. Boyer, ‘Alexandre Dumas à Naples avec Garibaldi en 1860’ (1960); A. Collet, Alexandre Dumas et Naples (1994). Dumas describes his earlier travels to Pompeii in Impressions de Voyage. Le Corricolo II (1978) and gives an account of Garibaldi’s progress in The Garibaldians in Sicily (1861). The career of Giuseppe Fiorelli is outlined by L. A. Scatozza Höricht, ‘Giuseppe Fiorelli’ (1987a) and by F. de Angelis, ‘Giuseppe Fiorelli: la «vecchia» antiquaria di fronte allo scavo’ (1993), and re-assessed by papers edited by V. Castiglione Morelli, A Giuseppe Fiorelli nel primo centenario della morte (1999). The overall background of archaeological studies in Naples during the nineteenth century is considered in an extensive section in La cultura classica a Napoli nell’ottocento, vol. 2 (1987).

Chapter 5: The Popularization of Pompeii On visitors’ encounters with guides at Pompeii, both in real life and in fiction, see E. M. Moorman, ‘Guides in the Vesuvius area eternalised in travelogues and fiction’ (2003). The development of photography at Pompeii is illustrated in the exhibition catalogues edited by B. Conticello, Fotografi a Pompei nell’800 dalle collezioni del Museo Alinari (1990) and M. Miraglia and M. Osanna, Pompei. La fotografia (2015). The distinctive contribution of Giorgio Sommer is analysed by B. Desrochers, ‘Giorgio Sommer’s photographs of Pompeii’ (2003). Changing trends in paintings depicting eruptions of Vesuvius are tracked by N. Daly, ‘The volcanic disaster narrative: from pleasure garden to canvas, page, and stage’ (2011). M. Samu, ‘The reception of Karl Briullov’s Last Day of Pompeii at the Salon of 1834’ (2021) explores the wider cultural and political tensions that influenced the painting’s mixed reception at Paris. For discussion of the impact of William Gell and Edward Bulwer-Lytton upon popular perceptions of Pompeii during the nineteenth century, see R. Sweet, ‘William Gell and “Pompeiana” (181719 and 1832)’ (2015); S. Goldhill, ‘A writer’s things: Edward Bulwer Lytton and the archaeological gaze; or, what’s in a skull?’ (2012); W. St Clair and A. Bautz, ‘Imperial decadence: The making of the myths in Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s “The Last Days of Pompeii” ’ (2012). Gell’s works are available in modern reprints: W. Gell and J. P. Gandy, Pompeiana: The topography, edifices, and ornaments of Pompeii ([1817– 19] 2010); W. Gell, Pompeiana: The topography, edifices and ornaments of Pompeii, the result of excavations since 1819, 2 vols ([1832] 2010). Lively impressions of Gell’s life at Naples emerge from his letters in E. Clay (in collaboration with Martin Frederiksen) (ed.), Sir William Gell in Italy (1976) and from the journal of Lady Blessington: E. Clay (ed.) Lady Blessington at Naples (1979). On the Pompeian Court at Crystal Palace see J. R. Piggott, Palace of the People: The Crystal Palace at Sydenham 1854-1936 (2004); S. J. Hales, ‘Re-casting antiquity: Pompeii and the Crystal Palace’ (2006). G. Scharf The Pompeian Court in the Crystal Palace (1854) offers a contemporary account of the Court. Pompeian popular spectacles are analysed by D. Mayer, ‘Romans in Britain 1886-1910: Pain’s ‘The Last Days of Pompeii” (1984–85); N. Yablon, ‘ “A picture painted in fire”: Pain’s reenactments of The Last Days of Pompeii 1879-1914’ (2007); M. Wyke, Projecting the Past: Ancient Rome, cinema and history (1997), chapter 6.

FURTHER READING

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Chapter 6: The People of Pompeii The themes in this chapter are explored by E. Dwyer, ‘Science or morbid curiosity? The casts of Giuseppe Fiorelli and the last days of romantic Pompeii’ (2007). The influence of the ‘Villa of Diomedes’ on the Pompeian Mansion of Jerome Napoleon on the avenue Montaigne in Paris is considered by S. Hales, ‘Living with Arria Marcella: Novel interiors in the Maison Pompéienne’ (2016). The full text of Arria Marcella’s prologue can be found at T. Gautier (1860) ‘La femme de Diomède: prologue’ https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5455633b.texteImage. The case of the ‘Sentinel of Pompeii’ is explored by L. Behlman, ‘The sentinel of Pompeii: An exemplum for the nineteenth century’ (2007). E. Dwyer, Pompeii’s Living Statues: Ancient Roman lives stolen from death (2010) explores the history of plaster casts in the nineteenth century, whilst E. Lazer et al., ‘Inside the casts of the Pompeian victims: Results from the first season of the Pompeii Cast Project in 2015’ (2021) publish a detailed analysis of the processes by which the casts were created. E. Lazer, Resurrecting Pompeii (2009) presents a critical analysis of Pompeii’s human skeletal remains.

Chapter 7: Rebuilding Pompeii For an overview of the persistent problems of conservation posed by the site over the centuries see S. De Caro, ‘Excavation and conservation at Pompeii: A conflicted history’ (2015). The changing approaches adopted in response to the challenge of how to conserve Pompeii’s paintings are set out in detail by P. D’Alconzo, Picturae excisae. Conservazione e restauro dei dipinti ercolanesi e pompeiani tra XVIII e XIX secolo (2002). Circumstances surrounding the site’s bombing in World War II are considered by N. Pollard, Bombing Pompeii: World heritage and military necessity (2020); L. García y García, Danni di guerra a Pompei. Una dolorosa vicenda quasi dimenticata (2006). On tensions around re-enacting spectacles in the ‘city of the dead’, see M. Beard, ‘Taste and the antique: Visiting Pompeii in the nineteenth century’ (2013). The drawings of architects from the French Academy are presented in the exhibition catalogues Pompei e gli architetti francesi dell’ottocento (1981) and Pompéi. Travaux et envois des architectes français au XIX e siècle (1981). The work of Lawrence AlmaTadema is discussed by various authors in E. Querci and S. De Caro, Alma Tadema e la nostalgia dell’antico (2007). Pompeian scenes painted by others are illustrated and analysed in G. C. Ascione, ‘Pompei e il mondo classico nella produzione pittorica napoletana tra “accademia” e “storia” ’ (2003) and S. Betzer, ‘Archaeology meets fantasty: Chassériau’s Pompeii in nineteenth-century Paris’ (2011). The natural environment of Pompeii is reconstructed in painstaking detail by W. F. Jashemski, The Gardens of Pompeii, Herculaneum and the Villas Destroyed by Vesuvius, vols 1 and 2 (1979 and 1993); W. F. Jashemski and F. G. Meyer (eds), The Natural History of Pompeii (2002); A. Ciarallo, Gli spazi verdi dell’antica Pompei (2012). The aims and progress of the Great Pompeii Project are described in M. Osanna and R. Picone (eds), Restaurando Pompei. Riflessioni a margine del Grande Progetto (2018). The new insights to have emerged from excavations conducted as part of the Great Pompeii Project are captured by M. Osanna, Pompei. Il tempo ritrovato: le nuove scoperte (2019).

148

GLOSSARY

Amphora: pottery transport container, often used for olive oil and wine. Atrium: main reception room of a house, leading to other rooms. Calotype: photographic technique invented in 1841, whereby a picture was produced by the action of light upon silver iodide, the image being developed and fixed by hyposulphite of soda. Camera lucida: an instrument enabling the eye to see an object or scene and a surface on which it is to be drawn at the same time. Cicerone: tour-guide. Diorama: exhibition of a scenic view indoors with controlled lighting. Encaenia: annual celebration of its benefactors by the University of Oxford in the Sheldonian Theatre, at which honorary degrees are awarded. Forum: open piazza in a town, surrounded by public buildings; the focus of religious, commercial, administrative and judicial affairs. Lithics: rock fragments. Lithograph: a printmaking technique. Macellum: meat and fish-market building in the forum. Magma: fluid or semifluid discharge from a volcano.

Orchestra: semi-circular space in the theatre in front of the stage. Panorama: painting of a landscape on a cylindrical canvas for public viewing. Peristyle: open courtyard surrounded by a portico. Phreatomagmatic explosion: volcanic explosion caused by the heating of underground water. Pumice: light, porous stone discharged from a volcano. Pyroclastic density currents (PDCs): fiery avalanches caused by partial or full collapse of eruptive column. Pyrodrama: spectacle combining a scenic backdrop with fireworks and dramatic action. Risorgimento: movement that began in the early nineteenth century, leading to the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy (1861) and eventually to Unification (1871). Stratigraphy: archaeological analysis of the relative chronology of the layering of remains. Tephra: pumice and lithics ejected from explosive volcanic eruptions. Triclinium: space for dining, with three couches.

149

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TIMELINE

79

Eruption of Mt Vesuvius: destruction of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae.

472

Major Pollena eruption of Mt Vesuvius.

1504

Sannazaro’s Arcadia.

1594–1600

Domenico Fontana’s aqueduct cuts through the site of Pompeii at Civita.

1631

Major eruption of Mt Vesuvius.

1734

Accession of Charles VII Bourbon of Kingdom of Naples and the Two Sicilies.

1738

Bourbon excavation of Herculaneum begins.

1748

Official excavations begin at Pompeii.

1755

Royal Herculaneum Academy established.

1759

Charles VII leaves for Spain, to become Charles III. Ferdinand IV accedes, under a Regency.

1764

Temple of Isis excavated.

1769

Visit to Pompeii by Emperor Joseph II.

1772

Human bodies found in ‘Villa of Diomedes’.

1798

Bourbon monarchs Ferdinand IV and Maria Carolina depart in exile to Palermo.

1799

Parthenopean Republic of Naples, under French control (January–June).

1799

Return of Ferdinand IV from exile (summer).

1806–08

Joseph Bonaparte ruling as King of Naples.

1806–16

Ferdinand IV in exile at Palermo for a second time.

1808–15

Joachim Murat ruling as King of Naples.

1816–25

Ferdinand resumes control as Ferdinand I, King of the Two Sicilies. 151

152

TIMELINE

1824/5

‘House of the Tragic Poet’ (VI.viii.5) excavated.

1825

First performance of the opera The Last Day of Pompeii by Giovanni Pacini.

1828

Karl Briullov’s painting, The Last Day of Pompeii.

1830–59

Ferdinand II, King of the Two Sicilies.

1834

Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novel, The Last Days of Pompeii.

1848

Commission for the Reorganization and Reform of the Bourbon Museum and the ancient Excavations in the Kingdom; political unrest in Naples.

1854

Crystal Palace opens at Sydenham, complete with the Pompeian Court.

1860

Garibaldi enters Naples; Dumas appointed Honorary Director of Naples Museum and excavations at Pompeii.

1862

Entrance to Pompeii by ticket introduced.

1863–75

Giuseppe Fiorelli in charge of site at Pompeii and Naples Museum.

1863

First plaster casts successfully made of human victims.

1865

Edward John Poynter’s painting, ‘Faithful unto Death’.

1884

Fund-raising spectacle in aid of victims of the Ischia earthquake.

1894–95

‘House of the Vettii’ (VI.xv.1) excavated.

1902

Eruption of Mt Pelée, Martinique.

1937

Plaster cast made of the ‘muleteer’.

1943

Allied bombs fall on Pompeii.

1944

Most recent eruption of Mt Vesuvius.

1980

Eruption of Mt St Helens. Irpinia earthquake impacted Bay of Naples.

1997

Archaeological sites of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Torre Annunziata listed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as a World Heritage Site.

2012–2018

Great Pompeii Project.

KEY FIGURES IN THE HISTORY OF POMPEII’S EXCAVATION Roque Joachín Alcubierre (1702–80): Spanish military engineer, excavator of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Michele Arditi (1746–1838): Director of the Royal Museum and Superintendent of Excavations 1807–38. Lady Blessington (Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington (1789– 1849): writer of novels and works of non-fiction, who married the Earl of Blessington in 1818, accompanying him on a tour of the continent from 1822–28. They spent much of their time in Naples. Joseph Bonaparte (1768–1844): Napoleon’s eldest brother, King of Naples (1806–08), then King of Spain (1808–13). Charles VII Bourbon, King of Naples and the Two Sicilies (1716–88): son of Philip V of Spain and Elisabeth Farnese. Promoted excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii as part of wide-reaching cultural plans for Naples. From 1759 abdicated at Naples, to become Charles III of Spain. Ferdinand IV Bourbon (1751–1825): King of Naples (6 October 1759–23 January 1799, including regency 1759–67; 13 June 1799–30 March 1806; 22 May 1815–12 December 1816) / Ferdinand III of Sicily (6 October 1759–12 December 1816) / Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies (8 March 1816–4 January 1825): third son of Charles VII and Maria Amalia; married Maria

Carolina (daughter of Empress Maria Theresa). Charles de Brosses (1709–77): French writer and nobleman, member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, author of an early work on Herculaneum (1750) Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803–73): writer and Member of Parliament as an independent radical and later as a Tory. Author of the best-selling novel The Last Days of Pompeii (1834). Alexandre Dumas (père) (1802–70): French novelist; supporter of Garibaldi by whom he was appointed as Honorary Director of Naples Museum and Pompeii excavations in 1860. Giuseppe Fiorelli (1823–96): Inspector of the excavations at Pompeii from 1860; Director of Naples Museum and Superintendent of Pompeii from 1863 to 1875, when he became Director General of Antiquities in Italy. Generally accredited with introducing new scientific principles into the excavation of Pompeii, including creating the first plaster casts of human bodies. Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807–82): Italian general who was instrumental in unifying the Italian peninsula and establishing the Kingdom of Italy. Having conquered Sicily, he took control of Naples in September 1860. 153

154

KEY FIGURES

Sir William Gell (1777–1836): Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, member of the Society of Dilettanti. Author, with John Gandy, of Pompeiana: The topography, edifices, and ornaments of Pompeii (1817– 19) and Pompeiana: The topography, edifices, and ornaments of Pompeii, the result of excavations since 1819 (1832). Genial host and tour-guide for upper-class English visitors to Naples. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749– 1832): One of the most influential German writers, who had a profound impact upon literature, music and art. Hs spent much of his life in Weimar. His Italian Journey, published in 1816, gives an account of part of his tour through Italy in 1788. Sir William Hamilton (1731–1803): British Envoy to the Kingdom of Naples (1764–1800), avid collector of antiquities and observer of Vesuvius; author of Campi Phlegraei: Observations on the Volcanos of the Two Sicilies (1776); accompanied the Bourbons in exile on Sicily in 1799–1800. Wilhelmina Jashemski (1910–2007): American archaeologist whose work on the natural history of Pompeii brought into focus the importance of horticulture within the town’s walls. Joseph II (1741–90): Holy Roman Emperor (1765–90), son of Empress Maria Theresa; brother-inlaw of Ferdinand IV. Visited Pompeii in 1769. François de Paule Latapie (1739–1823): French naturalist, who produced the earliest known plan of Pompeii. Sent a manuscript to the Academie des Sciences, Belles-Lettres et Arts de Bordeaux reporting on his expedition to Pompeii in 1776. Francesco La Vega (1737–1804): Director of Pompeii, 1764–1804.

Oversaw excavation of the Temple of Isis and Theatre District. Introduced early conservation measures. Amedeo Maiuri (1886–1963): Director of Pompeii, 1924–61; excavated a large area in the south-east of the site and Insula Occidentalis on its western perimeter. Caroline Murat (Bonaparte) (1782– 1839): youngest sister of Napoleon, wife of Joachim Murat, Queen of Naples (1808–15). Took intense interest in the excavation of Pompeii, pouring in funds for digging and encouraging new publications to disseminate the finds. Joachim Murat (1767–1815): King of Naples (1808–15), brother-in-law of Napoleon, married to Napoleon’s youngest sister Caroline Camillo Paderni (c. 1715–81): artist who came to Naples in 1739; offended the king by copying paintings and sending letters about the antiquities to the Royal Society, which were published in Philosophical Transactions without permission. From August 1748, was employed by the Court. Director of Portici Museum from 1752. Pliny the Elder (c. 23–79): Roman naval commander based at Misenum in 79; author of an encyclopaedic Natural History, died during the eruption of Vesuvius. Pliny the Younger (61–c. 113): Roman senator, who wrote an account of the eruption of Vesuvius in two letters to the historian Tacitus. Nephew of Pliny the Elder. Giorgio Sommer (1834–1914): German, who emigrated to Italy in 1857, to become the most successful commercial photographer of Pompeii in Naples, collaborating with Fiorelli to create a new style of ‘scientific’ image and marketing his photographs to tourists.

KEY FIGURES

Bernardo Tanucci (1698–1783): close political ally of Charles VII; influential figure in the Regency for Ferdinand IV. The extensive collection of his letters offers invaluable insights into the place of Pompeii in Bourbon politics. Karl Weber (1712–64): Swiss military engineer, who excavated at Pompeii

155

and Herculaneum, producing detailed documentation of the finds in their contexts. Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–68): German art historian; author of History of the Art of Antiquity; wrote critical letter and report in 1762 and 1764 on the excavation of Herculaneum.

156

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INDEX

Abbate, Giuseppe 91 Adam, Robert 56 Adamclissi (Moseia Inferior) 29 Agrippa (son of Antonius Felix) 28 Alcubierre, Joachim 37, 43, 48, 94 Alexander Severus (emperor) 26–7 Alinari photography 78, 86 All the Year Round 92 Alleius Nigidius Maius, Cn. 123 Alma-Tadema, Lawrence 89, 117–18, Plates 9–11 Alquier, Charles 59–60 America 4, 62, 75, 100 see also New York; Philadelphia; St Helens, Mount Amodio, Michele (photographer) 78 Antinori, Gaetano 46 antiquities, ownership of 42, 45, 52, 53, 59–60, 61, 67, 76 aqueduct 36–7, 122 Arditi, Michele (Director of Naples Museum) 110, 111 Arria Marcella 97–8 Atherstone, Edwin (The Last Days of Herculaneum) 88 Augier, Emile (‘The Flute Player’) 98 Auldjo, John 85 Austria 39 Baccelli, Guido (Minister of Education) 113 Barnum and Bailey Circus 11 Barthélemy, Abbé 51, 53 Bay of Naples 8, 18, 28, 32, 34, 36, 75, 88 Beckford, William (Dreams, Waking Thoughts and Incidents) 94, 95

Behles, Edmondo (photographer) 102, 103 Bianchi, Pietro 112 Blessington, Lady (Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington) 41, 84, 87, 96–7, 98–9, 110 Bonaparte, Joseph (king of Naples) 60 Bonucci, Carlo 26, 63, 64, 65 Bordone, Colonel 69 Boscoreale 9, 13, 16, 17, 120 Bottaro 18 Boulanger, Gustave 98, Plate 6 Bridges, Rev. George Wilson 78 Briullov, Karl (The Last Day of Pompeii) 81–2, 83, 84, Plate 4 Brizio, Eduardo 72 Brosses, Charles de 41, 52 Buckstone, J. B. 89 Bulwer-Lytton, Edward 4, 14, 83–7, 88–90, 91–2, 93, 97, 117, Plate 9 Burford, Robert (panoramas) 88 Callet, Félix-Emmanuel 116–17 Cambridge 48 Campania 26, 29, 30, 35 Canart, Giuseppe 109, 110 Capodimonte palace 40, 41, 56, 69 porcelain 54–6 Capri 31 Carafa, Giovanni (Duke of Noja) 40 Carelli, Francesco 59 Carter, Jimmy (President of the USA) 32 Caserta palace 40, 46, 47 Cassiodorus 35 183

184

INDEX

Cassius Dio 23, 26, 77 Catherine II (empress of Russia) 80 Cattaneo, Domenico (prince of San Nicandro) 41 Celestino, Andrea 110 Cellarius, Christophorus 35 Cerrinius Restitutus, M. 98 Charles VII Bourbon (king of Naples and the Two Sicilies = Charles III of Spain) 39–42, 48, 53, 54, 56, 109, 110–11 Chassériau, Théodore 118 Chateaubriand, François-René de 111 children 10, 27, 29, 81, 83, 95, 107 Christians 30–1, 82 cinema 92 Cipriani, Giovanni Battista 56 Civita 36–7, 48, 55 Clarac, Frédéric de 44 Cochin, Charles-Nicolas 52 coins 10, 12, 36, 93 Comes, Orazio 118 Cook, Thomas 76 copyright 47–8, 87, 89 Coxe, Henry 77 Coyer, Abbé 49 Cumae 29, 36, 66 D’Ambra, Raffaele 63 De Petra, Giulio 63, 72, 112, 115 Denon, Dominique-Vivan 116 Desprez, Louis Jean 51, 111, 116 Destouches, Louis 116 Diodorus of Sicily 8 diorama 88 diplomacy 46–7, 60 DNA analysis 107 Du Champ, Maxime 69 Dumas, Alexandre 59, 68–70, 112 Dupaty, Abbé 96 Dyer, Thomas 99 earthquakes 9, 14, 22–3, 25, 29, 35, 115, 122 Ellis, Alexander John (photographer) 78 Etna, Mount 7, 31 Euxinus (innkeeper) 121

Falkener, Edward 112 Farnese, Elisabeth 39, 40 Farnese collection 40–1 Ferdinand I (king of Naples) (reg. 1458–94) 36 Ferdinand I (king of the Two Sicilies) 111 Ferdinand II (king of the Two Sicilies) 62, 63, 64, 78 Ferdinand IV (king of Naples) 41, 42, 49, 54, 56, 59–60, 69 Fiorelli, Giuseppe 4, 94, 100 career from 1860 70–3, 77, 78–9 early career 62–7 plaster casts 71, 100, 101–5, 107 Fitzball, Edward (The Last Days of Pompeii) 88–9 Florence 40, 86 Florus (historian) 31 Fontana, Domenico 36–7 Fragonard, Jean Honoré 94–5, 96 France 39, 47, 52, 57, 116–17 Francis I (king of Naples) 56 Franque, Joseph 81, 83, Plate 3 furniture 54, 56 Galiani, Ferdinando 46, 48, 56 Gandy, John 61, 83, 99 Garibaldi, Giuseppe 4, 59, 67–70, 68 Gautier, Théophile 97–8 Gell, Sir William 61, 76, 83, 84, 85, 99 Genovesi, Antonio 41 Giornale di Napoli 102 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1749–1832) 1, 48, 53, 54, 67, 117 Gogol, Nikolai 82 Goldsmith, Oliver, The Traveller 42 Gori, Antonio Francesco 37 Grancourt, Pierre Jacques Onésyme Bergeret de 80 ‘Grand Tour’ 3, 52, 56, 76 Greenland ice core 23 Gregory, Eliot 87 Hackert, Jakob Philipp 53, 54, 81, 111, Plates 1–2, 8

INDEX

Hamilton, Sir William 44, 49–50, 52, 53, 56, 57, 76, 80, 81, 88 response to skeletons 94–5, 95 Harper’s Weekly 90 Hawker, Robert Stephen (poem Pompeii) 78 Herculanense Museum 42, 55, 56 see also Portici, palace Herculaneum 4, 27, 35, 48, 49, 69, 75, 122 destruction 3, 13, 24, 36 excavation 37, 40, 49, 55 publication 45, 47 Hill, Thomas Noel (2nd Lord Berwick) 54 Holstenius, Lucas (Lukas Holste) 36–7 Hosmer, Harriet (sculptor) 100, 101 Howells, William Dean 104 Illustrated London News 77, 86, 89, 91 inscriptions 26–7, 28–9, 34, 36, 37, 50, 52, 66, 77, 98, 99, 117, 121, 123 Ischia 80, 115 Jashemski, Wilhelmina 5, 119–21 Jaussely, Léon 117 Joseph II (emperor) 41–2, 44, 49, 94–5, 97 Josephine (empress) 59 Josephus (historian) 28 Julius Menecrates 29 Kauffmann, Angelica 54 Knebworth House (Hertfordshire) 86 La Vega, Francesco 42, 43, 49, 94, 95, 98, 110–11, 113–14 La Vega, Pietro 110 Lalande, Joseph 50–1, 52 Latapie, François de Paule 37, 44, 53, 71–2, 93, 94–5 Lattari, mountains 16 Layard, Austen Henry 102–3 Le antichità di Ercolano esposte 45–8, 47, 54, 55–6, 55, 57, 78

185

Leopold III (Prince) of Anhalt-Dessau 88 Liternum 27 London 32, 46, 52, 75, 82, 87, 88 Adelphi Theatre 89 Alexandra Palace Theatre 90 Crystal Palace 4, 90–1, 91, 92 Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly 88 Great Exhibition of 1851 90, 91 Syon House 56 Vaudeville Theatre 89 Louis XIV (king of France) 40 Macrini, Giuseppe 37 Maggi, Luigi (Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei) 92 Maiuri, Amedeo 25, 27, 103, 104, 114–15 Maldarelli, Federico 118 maps 35, 40, 66–7, 66 see also Peutinger Table Marcus Aurelius (emperor) 31 Maria Carolina (queen of Naples) 49, 54, 56, 60 Martial (poet) 24 Martin, John (The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum) 88, Plate 5 Martorelli, Giacomo 37 Mau, August 95 Mazois, François (Les Ruines de Pompéi) 61, 71, 95, 97 Milan 82 Miller, Lady Anna 52 Minneapolis Tribune 90 Misenum 7, 9, 13, 18 Misson, Maximilien (Nouveau voyage d’Italie) 53 Mocetto, Girolamo 35 Moore, John 111 Morelli, Domenico 118 Moriconi, Stefano 110 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 4, 25–6, 51 Murat, Caroline (queen of Naples) 60–1, 67, 76 Murat, Joachim (king of Naples) 60, 61, 69

186

INDEX

names 29–30 Naples 26, 28–9, 30, 31–2, 34, 35, 76 Bourbon 3, 4, 39–42, 44, 46–8, 54, 56, 62–6 Garibaldi 67–70 museum 5, 62, 63, 64–5, 67–8, 69–70, 71, 78–9, 79, 84, 99, 100, 105, 110 Napoleonic 4, 44, 59–61, 116 Parthenopean Republic 59 Napoleon (emperor) 4, 54, 59, 60, 62, 98, 116, Plate 6 Napoleon Jerome 98, Plate 6 neoclassical taste 54–7 Nero (emperor) 115 Netti, Francesco 118 New York, Manhattan Beach 89–90, 89 New York Mirror 77 Niccolini, Fausto 69–70 Nicholas I (emperor of Russia) 82 Nigidius Vaccula 118 Nola 26, 35 Nuceria (mod. Nocera) 26, 34 opera 25–6, 40, 51, 76, 82 Oplontis 9, 10, 13, 16, 35 Ostia 29 Overbeck, Johannes Adolph 95, 99 Oxford 78 Pacian, Bishop of Barcelona 31 Pacini, Giovanni (L’ultimo giorno di Pompei) 82 Paderni, Annibale 49 Paderni, Camillo 43, 46, 109, 110 Padua 47 Papal States 39, 42 Pain, James (pyrodramas) 89–90, 89 paintings Anna Amalia von Weimar portrait 117 ‘Aldobrandini Wedding’ 49 Pompeian 5, 42, 43, 45, 50, 53, 54, 57, 59, 109–11, 118 reconstructions of Pompeian scenes 118, Plate 12 Alma-Tadema, Lawrence 89, 117–18, Plates 9–11 Plüschow, Guglielmo 113

vedute landscapes 53, 54, Plates 1, 8 Vesuvius scenes 80–4, 100, Plates 2–5, 7 Palermo 59 panorama 88 Paris 59, 82, 98, 116 Pompeian Mansion 97–8, Plate 6 Réveillon wallpaper factory 57 Salon 81, 82 Parma 40 Pelée, Mount 11–12, 16 Pellegrino, Camillo 37 Peutinger Table 35 Philadelphia, Fairmount Park 91–2 Phlegraean Fields 40 Pichot, Joseph Jean 88 Pimental, Don Alfonso (viceroy of Naples) 40 Piranesi, Francesco 116 Piranesi, Giovanni Battista 116 Pliny the Elder 7–9, 15, 18, 28, 80, 82, 94 Pliny the Younger 7–9, 11, 12–14, 35 Plüschow, Guglielmo 113 Pollena Trocchia, villa 33 pomegranates 9 Pompei (modern town) 33, 34 Pompeii (general) Antiquarium 72, 114 bombardment 5, 114–15 burial from 79 to 1748 3, 25–8, 35–7 carbonized remains 1, 3, 118 conservation 5, 75, 109–14, 121–2 destruction 3, 7–24, 36 documentation 4, 46, 65, 72, 94, 122 earthquake damage 22–3 eggs 3, 4 excavation Bourbon 3, 39, 41–5, 49 Fiorelli 4, 71–3 Garibaldi 67 Great Pompeii Project 122–3 Napoleonic 45, 60–1, 116 spectacle, as 44–5, 60, 61, 94 gardens 112–13, 113, 118–19 Great Pompeii Project 122–3

INDEX

Pompeii (general) continued guidebooks 50–1, 72, 75, 76–8, 77–8, 79, 84, 85–6, 95, 99 impression of woman’s breast 96–7 model of 71 natural environment 5, 101, 112–13, 113, 118–22 paintings 5, 42, 43, 45, 50, 53, 54, 57, 59, 109–11, 117, 118 photography 72, 75–6, 78–9, 86, 102 plaster casts dog 21, 21 human 5, 10, 18, 71, 100, 101–5, 103, 104, 106, 107 plants and trees 101, 119–21, 120 wooden door 101 Pompeian Court at Crystal Palace 4, 90–1, 91 postcards 68, 68, 76, 78, 86, 91 publication 3, 45–8, 52–3, 61, 65–7, 69, 71, 72 see also guidebooks reconstruction 5, 70, 75, 109, 111–14 artistic 5, 51, 51, 84, 116–18 rediscovery 39 salvaging 26–8 skeletons 1, 5, 14, 15, 16, 18–22, 19–20, 22, 77, 84, 93–5, 105–7 ‘House of the Golden Bracelet’ 10, 12, 18 ‘House of Joseph II’ 94–5, 95–7 ‘House of the Menander’ 27 ‘House of Polybius’ (IX.xiii.1) 22 ‘Sentinel of Pompeii’ 98–100, 101, Plate 7 Temple of Isis 84 ‘Villa of Diomedes’ 84–5, 95–8 skulls 86 survivors of the eruption 18, 26, 28–30 tunnels 26, 27–8 visitors 1, 4, 5, 49–54, 61–2, 65, 70, 71, 75–9, 84–6, 102, 111–14, 115, 122 royal 44–5, 49, 60, 61, 62 Joseph II (emperor) 41–2, 49, 94–5 see also Civita

187

Pompeii (topography) 2 Amphitheatre 23, 37, 42, 49, 77, 83, 92, 110, 114, 115, 119, 121 Basilica 115 Building of Eumachia 23, 117 Covered Theatre 117 ‘Estate of Julia Felix’ (II.iv) 27, 42, 44, 109 Forum 23, 28, 36, 82, 84, 92, 114, 115, 116–17 Forum Baths 105, 118 Gladiatorial barracks 49 Gladiators’ Training School (III.ii) (Schola Armaturarum) 114, 115, 122 ‘Herculaneum Gate’ 37, 49, 55, 77, 82, 95, 98–100, 116, 117 ‘House of the Chaste Lovers’ (IX. xii.6–7) 14–15, 16, 22 ‘House of Fabius Rufus’ (VII ins. occ. 19–23) 23, 28 ‘House of the Faun’ (VI.xii.2, 5, 7) 67, 112 ‘House of the Garden’ (V.iii) 123 ‘House of the Gilded Cupids’ (VI.xvi.7) 23 ‘House of the Golden Bracelet’ (VI.xvii.42) 10, 10, 12 ‘House of Joseph II’ (VIII.ii.39) 44, 94–5, 95–7 ‘House of Julius Polybius’ 22, 107 ‘House of Marcus Lucretius’ (IX. iii.5) 112 ‘House of Marcus Lucretius Fronto’ (V.ix.a) 117 ‘House of the Menander’ (I.x.4) 3, 27 ‘House of N. Popidius Priscus’ (VII.ii.20) 26 ‘House of Pansa’ (VI.vi.1) 98, 118 ‘House of Queen Adelaide of England’ (VII.xiv.5, 18, 19) 62 ‘House of Sallust’ 77, 82, 84 ‘House of the Tragic Poet’ (VI. viii.5)/ ‘House of Glaucus’ 83–4, 86, 90

188

INDEX

Pompeii (topography) continued ‘House of the Vettii’ (VI.xv.1) 112–14, 113, 118–19 ‘Inn of Euxinus’ (I.xi.10–11) 121 Large Palaestra (II.vii) 14, 23, 103 Macellum (‘Pantheon’) 68, 115 ‘Marine Gate’ 114 ‘Nucerian Gate’ 36 orchard (I.xxii) 121 Regio V 28, 123 ‘Sarno Baths’ 28, 105 ‘Stabian Baths’ (VII.i.8) 23 ‘Stabian Gate’ 123 ‘Stabian Street’ 36 ‘Street of Abundance’ 22, 23, 121 ‘Street of Tombs’ 37, 49, 82, 84 ‘Suburban Baths’ 27 Temple of Apollo 114 Temple of Bacchus (S. Abbondio) 115 Temple of Isis 29, 49–52, 51, 54, 109, 110–11, 116, Plates 1, 8 Temple of Jupiter 14, 114, 115 ‘Temple of Venus’ 23 Theatre 37, 44, 49, 54, 70, 77, 84, 115, Plates 1, 8 tomb of Cn. Alleius Nigidius Maius 123 tomb of the Istacidii 116 tomb of Mamia 44, 45, 117, Plate 10 ‘Triangular forum’ 36, 112 ‘Vesuvian Gate’ 33 ‘Villa of Cicero’ 44 ‘Villa of Diomedes’ 77, 78, 82, 93, 95–8, 110, 116 ‘Villa of Mysteries’ 3 vineyard (II.v) 119–21 VI.xvii.41 46 Pompey the Great 37 Ponticelli, villa 33 Popidius Celsinus, N. 29 porcelain 60 Capodimonte 54–6 Wedgwood 57 Portici 109 palace 40, 42, 43, 44, 50, 51, 52, 53, 56, 77, 96–7, 109–10 see also Herculanense Museum population density, modern 24

Poynter, Edward John 100, Plate 7 Pozzolini-Siciliani, Cesira (journalist) 115 Procida 80 Pushkin, Alexander 82 Puteoli 30 Quaranta, Bernardo 65 railway 62, 115 Reece, Robert (Very Last Days of Pompeii) 89 Resina, Villa Favorita 56 Risorgimento 4, 63, 72–3 Rogers, Randolph (sculptor) 87 Romanelli, Domenico (Viaggio a Pompei) 76–7 Rome 23, 27, 32, 39, 40, 48, 49, 53, 59, 82, 86, 99 Capitoline Museum 40 French Academy 116–17 Roque, M. de la 48 Royal Herculaneum Academy 43, 45, 46, 51, 65 see also Le antichità di Ercolano esposte Ruffo, Marchese 110 Ruggiero, Michele De 72, 112 St Helens, Mount 12, 13, 16, 32, 35 St Pierre (Martinique) 11, 16 St Romain-en-Gal 34 Saint-Non, Abbé Jean Claude Richard de 51, 51, 52, 94, 96, 96, 116 Salerno 26 Salfi, Enrico 118 Saliceti, Aurelio 64 Sannazaro, Jacopo 35–6 Sarno, river 32, 36 Scafati 28, 33 Scognamiglio, Antonio 43 Scott, Sir Walter 4, 82 Second World War 5, 11, 114–15 Seneca the Younger, Natural Questions 22–3 Sergel, Johan Tobias 110 Settembrini, Luigi 102, 103 Shelley, Mary 93

INDEX

Silius Italicus (poet) 30 Sketchley, Arthur (novelist) 76 Soane, Sir John 54 Sogliano, Antonio 33, 72, 114, 118–19 Sommer, Giorgio (photographer) 21, 68, 68, 72, 78–9, 79, 102, 103, 113 Sorrento 26, 34–5 Spain 36, 39, 41, 46, 47, 54 Spartacus 8 spectacles 4, 75 eruptions of Vesuvius as 87–90 excavation as 44–5, 60, 61 pyrodramas 89–90 re-enactments at Pompeii 115 theatrical adaptations of The Last Days of Pompeii 88–9 Spinelli, Domenico (Principe di San Giorgio) 68, 72 Stabiae 8, 9, 13, 14, 15, 18, 31, 34, 35, 45, 46, 80, 88 Starke, Mariana 98 Statius (poet) 29, 30, 31–2 Stiles, Rev. Joseph C. 100 story-telling 5, 83, 92, 93, 94–5, 98–100, 103–5 Strabo 8 Suetonius 26 Tacitus (historian) 8, 31 Tanucci, Bernardo 44, 45, 49, 52, 110, 111 letters 39, 41, 42–3, 45–8, 56, 94, 109, 110 Tauchnitz (publisher) 86 Terzigno 10 Tertullian (Christian writer) 30–1 Testa, Angelo 94–5, 97 The Last Days of Pompeii, see Bulwer-Lytton, Edward The Times 109, 112, 114, 115 Theodoric (king) 35 Tiberius (emperor) 31 Tischbein, Johann Heinrich Wilhelm 54, 117 Titus (emperor) 26 tombs (excluding Pompeii) 28, 29, 34 Torre Annunziata 35, 36, 37, 114, 122

189

travel-writing 52–3 Twain, Mark 97, 99 Umbricii Scauri 30 Umbricius Puteolanus, A. 30 Valerius Flaccus (poet) 30 Venice 46, 47, 59, 82 Venuti, Domenico 45, 55–6 Vesuvius, Mount eruption AD 79 3, 7–24, 98, Plates 2–5, 7 contemporary responses to 24, 25–6, 29, 30–2 exact date 9–10, 123 opera, in 25–6, 82 regeneration following 32–5 eruption 472 33, 34 eruption 1631 11, 24, 80 eruption 1767 81 eruption 1822 28 eruption 1834 87 eruption 1944 11, 80 eruptions in late antiquity 35 eruptions in the future 12, 24 paintings of 80–2, 87, 88, Plates 2–4 present-day 23–4 spectacular entertainment 87–90, 115 visits to 76, 80, 81 Victor Emmanuel II (King of Italy) 72 Vienna 82 Volaire, Pierre-Jacques 80 wallpaper 57 Weber, Karl 43–4 Wedgwood, Josiah 57 Willis, Nathaniel Parker 77, 78 Winckelmann, Johann Joachim 11, 27, 37, 43, 98, 109 wine-making 9–10, 34–5, 119–21 Wörlitz, artificial Vesuvius 88 Wright, Joseph (of Derby) 80 Wyatt, Digby 91 Zoëga, Georg 51 Zulo, Giuseppe 60

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193

194

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PL ATE 1 Jakob Philipp Hackert, The Excavations at Pompeii (1799) (Attingham Park). Courtesy of the National Trust.

PL ATE 2 Jakob Philipp Hackert, ‘Eruption of Vesuvius in 1774’. Alamy image MMJWK9.

PL ATE 3 Joseph Franque, Scene during the Eruption of Vesuvius (1826). Philadelphia Museum of Art: Purchased with the George W. Elkins Fund, 1972, E1972-3-1.

PL ATE 4 Karl Briullov, The Last Day of Pompeii (1833) (The State Russian Museum, St Petersburg). Alamy image GF8D4P.

PL ATE 5 John Martin, The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum (1822, restored 2011) (Tate Gallery).

PL ATE 6 Gustave Boulanger (1861) Rehearsal of ‘The Flute Player’ and ‘Wife of Diomedes’ at Prince Napoleon’s (Musée D’Orsay). Alamy image: E8F8GC.

PL ATE 7 Edward John Poynter, Faithful unto Death (1865) (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool). Alamy image: P78X3Y.

PL ATE 8 Jakob Philipp Hackert/Georg Hackert, ‘View of the Theatre, Pompeii’ (1793), hand-coloured etching. BM 2012,5031.1. ©The Trustees of the British Museum, https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_2012-5031-1.

PL ATE 9 Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Glaucus and Nydia (1867). Cleveland Museum of Art, https://www.clevelandart.org/ art/1977.128

PL ATE 10 Lawrence Alma-Tadema, An Exedra (1869). Alamy image MP85F0.

PL ATE 11 Lawrence Alma-Tadema, The Vintage Festival (1871) (Kunsthalle Hamburg). Alamy image G3YEKR.

PL ATE 12 Théodore Chassériau, Tepidarium (1853) (Musée D’Orsay). Alamy image 2F1FW9H.