Art and Archaeology of Ancient Rome Vol 1: Art and Archaeology of Ancient Rome

By David Soren

Classical archaeology was long equated to ancient art history. Today these fields find themselves at a major crossroads. The influence on them—from the discipline of anthropology—has increased substantially in the past 15 years, adding to the ways in which scholars can study the Roman past. The classical archaeologist of the 21st cen

• Language: English
• Publisher: Midnight Marquee Press, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 9, 2009
• ISBN: 9781644301104

Book preview

Art and Archaeology of Ancient Rome: An Introduction

by David Soren and Archer Martin

About the Authors

Archer Martin specializes in the study of Roman pottery and related socio-economic questions. He studied at Vanderbilt University and the Universität Regensburg in Bavaria, before doing his graduate studies in classical archaeology at the Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza and the Scuola Archeologica Italiana di Atene. He has taught at the Universities of Fribourg, Trento and Suor Orsola Benincasa (Naples) and served as the Andrew W. Mellon Professor-in-Charge of the School of Classical Studies at the American Academy in Rome. He also founded and directs the Howard Comfort FAAR ’29 Summer School in Roman Pottery at the AAR. He has worked on many archaeological projects in Italy (in particular at Rome, Ostia and Pompeii, as well as in Tuscany, Umbria and Abruzzo), Greece (Olympia and Gortyna), Turkey (Ephesos) and Egypt (Schedia in the western Delta near Alexandria). He is the treasurer of the Rei Cretariae Romanae Fautores, the leading association for the promotion of Roman pottery studies.

David Soren is the Regents Professor of Anthropology and Classics and Adjunct Regents Professor of Art History at the University of Arizona. He received his B.A. from Dartmouth College in Greek and Roman Studies, his M.A. from Harvard in Fine Arts and his Ph.D. from Harvard in Classical Archaeology. He is a Fellow of Great Britain’s Royal Institute of International Affairs and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He has published 10 books and more than 100 articles on archaeology, art history, film, vaudeville and dance and has directed excavations in Tunisia, Portugal, Cyprus and Italy. He has won the Ciné Golden Eagle Award for documentary filmmaking and has worked extensively as a producer, director, screenwriter and consultant for NBC, PBS, A & E, BBC, RAI 1 (Italy), Discovery, National Geographic and the Learning Channel. For his contributions to Italian archaeology, he has been named an honorary Italian citizen.

Front Cover: Reconstruction of the Barracks of the Vigils at Ostia by Angelo Coccettini and Marzia Vinci.

Back Cover: Neonate burial at Lugnano in Teverina. Child reconstructed by Walter Birkby, Arizona State Museum Human Identification Laboratory. Photo credit: Noelle Soren. University of Arizona School of Anthropology Archive.

Copyright © 2015 Dr. David Soren

Interior layout and cover design by Susan Svehla

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner or the publishers of the book.

Volume I paperback: ISBN 978-1-936168-51-4

ISBN 978-1-644301-10-4 (e-book)

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2014938438

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Printing December 2014

First Paperback Printing May 2015

This volume is dedicated to Charles R. Chuck Young

Charles R. Chuck Young

Born in Forest Hills, New York in 1931, the son of a Sicilian father and German mother, young Chuck wanted to be a cowboy.

He witnessed the hard day’s work of his immigrant Grandfather, Giuseppe, that began in 1898 when Giuseppe brought his family to America to fulfill their dreams. And they did.

For him, there was art in nearly everything. Some call it having ‘a knack for something’—he called it art. He studied the light, the carving, the brush strokes, the scene’s integrity and he was a master at getting you to see what he saw and to take pleasure in it. He was also a master storyteller.

The Navy, forest service and horses were his interests as a young man. A professional career in Real Estate spanned 6 decades. Today, The Joseph and Mary Cacioppo Foundation benefits tremendously from his 30 years of dedication. His legacy is one of compassionate giving with an expanded view of philanthropy.

He taught about the significance of the past, loyalty to what is true in the present and the possibilities of the future.

He loved his country and may very well have continued to ‘serve’, had a cowboy hat & pair of riding boots been standard issue. Chuck (Dad), you lived authentic.

Michael-Anne Young

President, The Joseph and Mary Cacioppo Foundation.

Map of Italy showing location of the Apennine mountain range and other areas mentioned in the text, by Roxanne Stall.

TABLE OF CONTENTS: VOLUME I

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Historiography—The Rediscovery of Roman Culture

Chapter I: The Early Romans and Their Ancestors (2000-700 BCE)

Chapter II: The Etruscans (700-500 BCE)

Chapter III Etruscans in Rome

Chapter IV: Early Republican Rome (500-300 BCE)

Chapter V: The Middle Republic (300-100 BCE)

Chapter VI: Rome in the Revolutionary First Century BCE

Chapter VII: The Age of Augustus

Chapter VIII: Julio-Claudian Successors of Augustus

Chapter IX: The Flavian Emperors

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

VOLUME II

Chapter X: Trajan and Hadrian—The Empire at its Zenith

Chapter XI: The Antonine Emperors and the Severans

Chapter XII: The Third Century CE—Years of Crisis

Chapter XIII: Rome in Late Antiquity

Chapter XIV: Greece in the Roman Period— The Evolution of a New Culture

Chapter XV: Ephesos—How a City Functioned in the Roman Empire

Appendix I: The Importance of Roman Pottery

Appendix II: Excavating a Roman Archaeological Site

FILMS

Part 1: Rome and the Etruscansfor Chapters I-III

Part 2: The Rise of Romefor Chapters III-VII

Part 3: Imperial Romefor Chapters VII-XIII

Extras:Acceleerator Mass Spectrometry

A Visit to the Tree-Ring Lab

Films that enhance this text can be found at:

http://www.midmar.com/SOREN.html

PREFACE

here have been numerous textbooks about the art history and monuments of ancient Rome. With this new work, the authors have attempted to create something slightly different. Students of the subject will still be able to gain the essential basic knowledge of the most important works of art and architecture that have been the focus of university art history courses for more than a century and remain the essential starting point for gaining a window into Roman Antiquity. In addition to this, however, anthropology, classical studies, social history and computer graphics have been used throughout this text and supplementary DVD in order to help the beginning student understand the daily life of the ancient Romans.

The authors have sought to emphasize not only the greatest works of ancient art but have also included utilitarian objects which were more typical of the Roman life experience. It is hoped that this holistic approach can afford an appreciation not only of that estimated one-sixth that formed the Roman elite but also the remaining five-sixths who formed the majority of the Roman people.

New technologies are being developed each year allowing increased possibilities for understanding the past. These range from innovations in museology as exemplified by the ruin within a museum approach of Rome’s Capitoline Museums to the virtual-reality 3D walk-throughs that allow the general public to experience the past first-hand by passing through museums or even reconstructed ancient buildings and sites. If a picture is worth a thousand words, the 21st century is showing that there is a growing desire to offer detailed and intimate snapshots that allow the past to resonate and reveal itself in ways not thought possible a generation ago.

In this textbook the authors present more than 400 images, including over 100 new plans and specially commissioned reconstructions. There are also three documentary films included with this volume (as well as supplementary short videos), which the reader is encouraged to view first to obtain an overview of the subject at hand. The first film deals with early Rome and the influence of the Etruscan culture, the second with Republican Rome, the development of the Forum Romanum and the beginning of the Roman Empire, and the final film takes Rome through its Empire to its decline in Italy and its passage into the Middle Ages.

Not every ancient Roman was able to create or possess beautiful art and architecture. Theirs was a complex society full of remarkable creations but also full of people struggling to get through their lives, to please their employers and to protect their families. Students of the future, with computer skills beyond those of this generation, will continue to fuse different disciplines together to create innovative insights into the Roman past. It is to those future scholars of Roman art and archaeology that this textbook is dedicated.

Acknowledgments

he authors would like to thank many individuals who assisted in the production of this volume: Michael-Anne Young and Chuck Young of the Joseph and Mary Cacioppo Foundation for their unwavering support of the project and kindness over many years; Jean and George Angle for 15 years of support of our projects; Noelle Soren, photographer, for the many beautiful photographs used in this work and for her 47 years of collaboration and support; Claudio Bizzarri, for his countless hours of help scouting locations and securing permissions; Alba Frascarelli for her support in running our international school while this project took us away; Roxanne Stall and Cherylee Francis for the many beautiful original illustrations; Philip Zimmerman and the University of Arizona Department of Art (Sarah Welland, Project Director for this book) for their stop-motion animations and reconstruction architecture; Angelo Bartoli and his Centro di Archeologica Sperimentale Antiquitates, known as Archeosperimentale, for making available all his facilities to us; Mario Iozzo, Assistant Director, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze; Giuseppina Carlotta Cianferoni, Director, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze; Musei Capitolini, Rome, Italy (Claudio Parisi Presicce, Director, and Angela Carbonaro, Director of Outreach); Daniel Duncan for his superb cinematography; Carolina Megale of Archeodig in Populonia, Tuscany; Giandomenico De Tommaso, Università degli Studi di Firenze and Museo archeologico del territorio di Populonia, in Piombino; Giuseppe Della Fina, Director, Faina Museum, Orvieto, Italy; Alessandra Minetti, Director, Museo archeologico di Sarteano; Giulio Paolucci, Director, Museo archeologico civico delle acque di Chianciano Terme; John Camp and the American School of Classical Studies in Athens / Athenian Agora Project; Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali—Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici del Lazio and Soprintendente dott.ssa Marina Sapelli Ragni and il Funzionario Responsabile dott.ssa Sandra Gatti for the images of Praeneste; Angelo Coccettini (computer architectural reconstruction specialist) and Marzia Vinci (consulting archaeologist) for the marvelous reconstructions of Ostia Antica; Professor John Dobbins and his student Ethan Gruber for the House of the Faun research; John Stephens for his rendering of the Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum; Bernard M. Frischer, classical scholar and reconstruction modeling specialist of Rome Reborn and the University of Virginia. Special thanks to Taylor Genovese for directing the radiocarbon video linked with chapters VII- XIII.

Many others have made various portions of this work possible and include: David G. Romano, Corinth Computer Project; Irene Bald Romano, Deputy Director, Arizona State Museum; Emma Blake for reading the early manuscript and finding weaknesses; Janet Beattie for believing in the project early on; Natalie Gleason for her work on the bibliography; Richard Carlin for his assistance throughout in improving the work; Thomas Nicholson, former director, American Museum of Natural History for many years of support; Giuseppe Cavatorta and Beatrice d’Arpe for translation skills; Michael MacKinnon of the University of Winnipeg for his contributions in forensic anthropology; Karen Adams of the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center for help with paleo-environments; Marvin Landis, computer reconstruction specialist at AZ-Live, University of Arizona; Michael Martelle of the University of Arizona Computer Center; Anna Marguerite McCann, former Director, Cosa Harbor Excavations; Stephan Steingräber, Università degli Studi di Roma Tre, Dipartimento di studi storico-artistici, archeologici e della conservazione; Daniel Roper for his work on the new maps; Student researcher Vaclav Shatillo; Elizabeth Fentress and the American Academy in Rome Cosa Excavations; Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. for permission to use several Roman coins; John Rutherford, architect, and architectural assistant Alexandra Korn; Professor James Packer of Northwestern University and reconstruction specialist John Burge for the reconstruction of Trajan’s Forum; Joshua Meehan for the plan of Timgad, Algeria; Mario Coluzzi, Istituto di Parassitologia, Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza; Ili Nagy for her support and assistance at the American Academy in Rome; Walter Birkby, formerly of the Human Identification Laboratory of the University of Arizona; The York Archaeological Trust; David Vandenberg, reconstruction artist for Lugnano in Teverina, Italy, and Kourion, Cyprus; Eleni Hasaki, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Classics, University of Arizona; Jose Olivas, computer reconstruction specialist; Melitta Franceschini and the staff of the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology; Michael Martelle, computer reconstruction specialist.

Introduction:

Historiography—The Rediscovery of Roman Culture

lassical archaeology was long equated to ancient art history. Today these fields find themselves at a major crossroads. The influence on them—from the discipline of anthropology—has increased substantially in the past 15 years, adding to the ways in which scholars can study the Roman past. The Great Monuments approach, whereby students learn about important works of art has been increasingly supplemented with a more holistic approach, whereby scholars want to know more about how the Romans experienced their daily lives. The art object becomes important not only as a work of art but also for what it reveals about the culture that made it. This has always been a major tenet of art history, but now science is adding possibilities that allow us to enjoy a deeper understanding of the piece. The art work can be appreciated a priori , that is, immediately without a fuller understanding of it, or it can be seen as a microcosm of its society.

Classical archaeology today is increasingly concerned not just with ancient art but with the full range of past human experience, including the level of civilization reached, the complex interactions of social and political groups, religious beliefs, routine of daily life and reasons for change in the society. These are what are termed processual questions. We now investigate everything we can deduce from the material remains of the past, including works of art but not only them, and in this approach art historians, historians and anthropologists are fusing their research together, dissolving the barriers among their disciplines and focusing on seeking answers to a wide variety of questions.

Traditionally in colleges and universities a student would begin by learning Greek and Latin as an undergraduate, sometimes even getting a head start on languages in high school or in a college preparatory school. The student deciding to specialize in classical archaeology would continue the language study at the graduate level, take a number of history classes and then briefly study field methodology in school or on a dig to learn how to excavate properly. Additional art history classes would provide essential knowledge of the most important monuments of Greek and Roman art and architecture that had been discovered. This curriculum, heavy on language study, did not allow enough time for anthropological concepts to infiltrate the program of study.

The implications of hard science and computers were also slower to reach classical archaeologists and art historians, creating a rift in the 1960s and 1970s among the fields of study because anthropologists began to view classical archaeologists or ancient art historians as unenlightened and methodologically unsophisticated and classical archaeologists thought of anthropologists as diggers whose approach was adequate for illiterate societies but not for ancient Rome since they didn’t know Greek and Latin and therefore could not do proper scholarly research. Art historians, whether or not they also took part in archaeological excavations, generally affiliated with the classical archaeologists but seldom were able to fit anthropological theory courses into their curriculum.

It has only been after the strong influence of the so-called New Archaeology in the 1970s and 1980s that Classics and Art History Departments slowly began to realize that the holistic approach, wherein many different disciplines might be synthesized, could provide deeper insights into Classical Antiquity. The rise of the computer in the 1980s opened up remarkable vistas for those who would or could appreciate them, so that now it is common to see a specialist in the visualization of antiquity in an art or classics department or a classical archaeologist being invited to join an anthropology department. It is still essential to learn the great monuments and art works of the ancient Greeks and Romans in order to recognize the visual grammar of these dynamic ancient societies. However, the traditional separations of university departments are now breaking down and morphing into joint appointments for professors and cross-listed courses involving multiple disciplines.

Economic cutbacks for universities have also fueled the need for interdisciplinary synthesis, and therefore the classical archaeologist of the 21st century is likely to be versed in Greek and Latin, computer technology, ancient history, great monuments, various hard sciences such as physics or even astronomy, GPS, GIS, surveying, mapping, digitizing, artistic rendering, numismatics, geo-science, astronomy, environmental studies, material culture analysis and/or a host of other disciplines and sub-disciplines. Universities are seeking specialists whose talents embrace not one but several different fields of research. It is not necessary for each scholar to know everything about each discipline being used within the fields of art history, classical archaeology and anthropology, but these days a basic knowledge of all relevant disciplines is becoming indispensable. It is instructive to examine briefly how this all came to be.

ANTIQUARIANISM

For thousands of years people have enjoyed collecting things, organizing them in some manner and displaying them for others to see. The ancient Romans conspicuously displayed their wealth by possessing copies of Greek original works of art, sometimes even passing off contemporary copies of ancient works as the real thing. Turning one’s home into a place of the Muses or a Mouseion was an indication that you were a cultured person, a mousikos aner as the Greeks had put it, a man inspired by the Muses. Such complexes as the Forum of the Roman Emperor Vespasian (circa 75 CE) were parks full of classical statuary and art that could be enjoyed by all the people of Rome at little or no expense.

In Italy, wealthy families amassed huge collections of ancient art beginning even before the Renaissance in the 15th century and enjoyed emulating the works of the ancients in their own magnificent palazzi. European Renaissance princes and people of wealth and refinement created so-called cabinets of curiosities or wonder cabinets in which curios and ancient artifacts were haphazardly displayed alongside natural oddities such as minerals and natural history objects. In western civilization, this desire for collecting and presentation intensified in the Renaissance with the rise of the concept of Humanism, which attached increasing importance to living a life filled with recognizable accomplishments rather than one exclusively devoted to the church.

Fig. Intro-1a (above), 1b (below) Portrait of Mauro and Eugenio Faina, patrons of the Faina Museum of Orvieto, Umbria. Courtesy, Faina Museum (Giuseppe della Fina, Director).

A typical example of antiquarian collecting is the story of Count Mauro Faina of Perugia in Umbria, central Italy, and his family. Supposedly Maria Bonaparte Valentini, a relative of Napoleon, gave a gift to Count Mauro of 34 vases in the early 1860s, when Mauro, who had a passion for amassing and displaying ancient objects, was enjoying excavating for ancient treasures on her land near the town of Chiusi in southern Tuscany. He invested so much in his excavations and treasure hunting that he complained of possibly running out of money. When Mauro died in 1868, his brother Claudio eventually inherited the vases which were soon given to their nephew Eugenio to be displayed in the family palazzo in Perugia in the region of Umbria (Fig. Intro-1a, 1b). The vases and other objects purchased in local art markets had given the family some 300 objects, including, particularly, a large collection of ancient Roman coins.

The family also had property in the town of Orvieto, several hours ride from Perugia, and there the collection was assembled and displayed by the family in 1869. Eugenio was not so interested in purchasing more art on the open market as others in the family had been doing but he chose instead to gather together all the material he could in Orvieto, which also yielded a large quantity of Etruscan artifacts and art objects from a large necropolis or city of the dead filled with tombs of the period between 550 and 450 BCE and known as the Crocefisso del Tufo cemetery, excavated by Riccardo Mancini. The conscientious gathering of material from this site, even though it was done less than scientifically, at least prevented the wholesale selling of this material and its dispersal across Europe through local and regional art markets and through outright thievery. Eugenio, seized with patriotism for the newly emerging independence of Italy as well as a local pride in the history of his region, did something significant in thinking about his people’s place in history; he created a local center for the appreciation of the art of the past. By 1888 the collection had achieved its first comprehensive catalogue.

Fig. Intro-2 Faina Museum in Orvieto. Courtesy, Faina Museum (Giuseppe della Fina, Director).

The Faina family pursued this policy of collecting locally through the remaining 1800s and continued displaying their cache in their Palazzo Faina on the main square of Orvieto until a large amount of material was amassed, including Greek and Orvietan pottery (several pieces are attributed to the school of Exekias, the most famous black-figure vase painter of Archaic Athens), the large collection of Roman coins, and several remarkable sarcophagi or stone tomb containers elaborately carved with images from the Etruscan death cult (Figs. Intro-3, 4).

Fig. Intro-3 Etruscan sarcophagus of the fourth century BCE from Torre Santa Severa, near Orvieto, showing the sacrifice of the Trojan Captives flanked by Etruscan demons. Courtesy, Faina Museum (Giuseppe della Fina, Director).

Fig. Intro-4 Detail of an Etruscan Vanth from the Torre Santa Severa Sarcophagus. Courtesy, Faina Museum (Giuseppe della Fina, Director).

In 1954 the last of the line, Claudio Junior, son of Eugenio, left in his will all of his property in order to finance the creation of the Foundation for the Museum of Claudio Faina, thus at one stroke immortalizing his own name and that of his family and also creating a magnificent museum for regional antiquities. Similar activities took place throughout Italy, especially in areas that were steeped in antiquity, had easy access to ancient art and ruins and were full of local patriotism. It became normal for elite families to assemble small or good-sized collections, each with a particular pièce de résistance. Italy contains many of these museums which started with local amateurs wanting to promote themselves, their regions and their history through digging and forming local societies to insure the continuation of their mutual dream.

EARLY EXCAVATION AT POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM

The first large-scale excavation to occur in Italy was the work at Pompeii and Herculaneum (Fig. Intro-5). This can be seen as part of a trend to extend the investigation of Classical remains outside Rome. London’s Society of Dilettanti was founded in 1732 for young men of breeding who would take the famous Grand Tour of places one simply had to see before being considered a properly educated man. The group also financed digs, detailed drawings of ancient sites, and publications designed to increase information about the ancient world. James Stuart and Nicholas Revett began documenting masterworks of Greek architecture stone by stone and publishing their results in beautiful folios as early as 1762. The English architect Robert Woods had already published the primarily Roman Ruins of Palmyra, a remarkably well preserved ancient city in central Syria, as early as 1753, and James Dawkins and Robert Woods brought the The Ruins of Baalbek out in 1757, featuring more wonders of the ancient Romans, exemplified by a gigantic temple complex that dwarfed the imagination in size and splendor.

There was, however, virtually no knowledge available on how to conduct archaeological excavations or how to view the past with a scientific eye. This seems hard to imagine in light of how routinely we view a dig today, but even the most fundamental concepts of methodology and interpretation did not exist yet and would slowly develop over the next 100 years. In the lands around the Bay of Naples in Italy that had been engulfed in the violent eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, little had been noted until circa 1710 when a local villager attempted to deepen a well and started pulling up antiquities. Since this occurred during the Austrian occupation of this region, an Austrian army officer, duke and prince named Maurice of Lorraine quickly bought the villager’s land with the idea of continuing the digging to provide decoration or fine material for his own local villa under construction by 1719. The well turned out to have been placed over the actual theatre of the wealthy ancient Roman town of Herculaneum, which was situated on the very slopes of the erupting volcano. A number of statues were recovered but continuing eruptions from the ever-dangerous Vesuvius prevented larger investigation of the region even for looters. Three statues recovered went back to Vienna where they were greatly celebrated and finally inherited by the Princess Anna Victoria of Saxony and then sold to Augustus III of Poland who had sent them to Dresden by 1737. Maria Amalia of Saxony (1724-1760), daughter of Augustus III, was barely a teenager but a young lady of extraordinary education, refinement and intelligence, who was sensitive to the emerging cultural impulses of the time, particularly in regard to the admiration of the accomplishments and remains of the Classical world. She proved to be a fine and enduring consort for the antiquarian Bourbon Charles VII (later Charles III, King of Spain). During this time of rivalry and intense distrust among Spain, Austria, France and England, Charles’ father had become king of Spain and Austria had laid claim to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which included Naples, Herculaneum and Pompeii. Charles was allowed to take over the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies provided that he stayed independent from his father and Spain, but this necessitated that Charles become a respected ruler in his own right. This he did by turning Naples into a cultural center and making his palaces and communities treasure troves of fine art, including a large quantity of beautiful pieces from ancient sites that he had obtained from the Farnese family and through various purchases.

Fig. Intro-5 Temple of Isis at Pompeii, Kingdom of Naples, c. 1767. Hand-colored etching taken from William Hamilton’s study of Italian volcanoes, ‘Campi Phlegraei’ (published in Naples, 1776). Image shows the temple being cleared of the volcanic matter from Mount Vesuvius which buried Pompeii in 79 CE. Location: Science Museum, London, Great Britain. Photo Credit: SSPL/Science Museum / Art Resource, N.Y.

Fig. Intro-6 Portrait of King Charles III of Spain (1716-1788) by Andres de la Calleja (1705-1785). Portrait painted c. 1770. Charles is the former Charles VII, King of Naples. Photo: Alfredo Dagli Orti. Location: Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid, Spain. Photo Credit: Art Resource, N.Y.

Charles VII thus used archaeological excavation as a source for beautifying his kingdom and making it an essential stop on the Grand Tour for the elite of Europe (Fig. Intro-6). The discoveries at Herculaneum, just seven miles from one of his palaces, proved inviting for him and his bride, who was later portrayed in paintings among Roman ruins and in the company of Greek gods. When Charles learned the story of the magnificent statues that had arrived at the royal court at Dresden he and his young bride became convinced that more could be found and in 1738 encouraged the discovery of more beautiful objects.

The original excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii produced major results even if Charles was sometimes offended by the nudity of some of the pieces discovered. The dig sites quickly became hotbeds of political and personal intrigue and carelessness. There was not even agreement on how to organize and publish the proceedings. Ottavio Bayardi, cousin to the prime minister, had an unwarranted political appointment and was placed in charge of producing the official catalogue of finds. He was a gossip who enjoyed spreading nasty rumors about those who might potentially challenge his authority. The five books that he completed by 1752 totaled 2,672 pages and were so poorly received that, despite his family connections, he was removed from his post by 1755 and in his place the Accademia Ercolanese (the Herculaneum Academy) was established, a group of 15 scholars whose duty it was to determine how to do a better job of recording everything.

The Spanish engineer Roque Joachin de Alcubierre directed the initial excavations but was necessarily more concerned about producing interesting finds which would keep the funding coming. Karl Weber, a young Swiss architect and engineer, attempted to apply principles of order (such as room by room documentation) and careful drawings of what was found when he joined the excavation team in 1749, although he quickly became caught up in the choosing of sides and constant quarreling and intrigue. Herculaneum was the first of the towns of Vesuvius to be excavated but the Abbot Giacomo Martorelli located and began excavating Pompeii in 1749. The Abbot too quickly courted controversy. He wrote a two-volume 652-page treatise claiming that the ancients did not use scrolls even though scrolls were being found down the road at the Villa of the Papyri of Herculaneum and the Augustine monk Father Antonio Piaggi was attempting to unravel them with a remarkable scroll-unrolling machine that he invented in 1756.

Charles VII and Maria Amalia may have spearheaded the investigation in the Naples area but they were not the only ones interested in the exciting discoveries. Johann Joachim Winckelmann, born in 1717, was the son of a poor Prussian shoemaker (Fig. Intro-7). After receiving a grant to study theology and Latin at the library of a certain Count Bünau in Saxony in 1748, he had the opportunity to go to Dresden where the famous statues were exhibited. He next was sent to Rome under the aegis of Augustus III in order to investigate the commotion that had been stirred up over the past ten years by the finds of ancient art. In 1754 he became the librarian to Cardinal Albani’s personal collection of antiquities. So appreciative of this unique opportunity was Winckelmann that he agreed to convert to Catholicism just so he could continue his work. By 1763 he had been named the supervisor of antiquities in and around Rome, a position which had been held in the Renaissance by the artist Raphael. In this distinguished capacity he made his first visit to the excavations being conducted at Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Winckelmann became known for his Sendschreiben or Open Letters regarding the discoveries at Herculaneum. He detailed some of the discourtesy, intrigue and jealousy he witnessed. So-called scholars, often frauds with political or religious connections, courted the favor of the king and made it difficult to obtain permission to visit the excavation sites. Bribery was rampant and Winckelmann had little patience for the methodology and attitude of director of excavations Joaquin de Alcubierre, stating that he knew as much about antiquities as the moon does of lobsters. He began to write pleas for better methodology to avoid the destruction of Herculaneum and Pompeii (Fig. Intro-8). The more he visited the ancient sites in the Naples area the more Winckelmann sensed that the statues being found were often copies of works associated with ancient Greece. Without visiting Greece he became convinced that the Romans were copying Greek art and life and that scholars should focus increasingly on understanding more about Greek culture. He even believed that the elegance of the ancient Greek language had produced a people who became beautiful just from the speaking of it. His 1764 publication History of Ancient Art (Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums) and other open letters and publications helped to create a bias against Roman art and in favor of ancient Greek art that was taught all over Europe and America and actually continued at many universities and on sites around the Mediterranean well into the 1960s.

Fig. Intro-7 Anton Raphael Mengs (1728-1779), Portrait of Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768). C. 1755. Oil on canvas. Photo Credit: Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, N.Y.

The excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum did, however, spark a renewed interest in Classical antiquities and ancient art history, as well as a neo-Classical fashion in everything from tableware to women’s clothing. As more of the ancient Classical world was explored, it became clear to numerous scholars that it needed to be better understood and more carefully investigated. Karl Weber had something of the right idea at Pompeii but he could not get his desires for careful measuring and recovering of materials fully implemented. Much more needed to be done to come to grips with the ancient past. Antiquarianism was just beginning to give way to a more processual approach and there were visionaries waiting in the wings.

BRINGING METHODOLOGY TO POMPEII

Excavation at Herculaneum proved to be extremely difficult because the site was on the slope of Mount Vesuvius and filled with more than 60 feet of hardened super-heated mud that formed during the eruption in a mixture of steam and dust creating what is called a pyroclastic flow. When this subsides and hardens it is best excavated with jackhammers and can be frustrating to attack with traditional picks, trowels and shovels. Pompeii is much easier to dig out because it was covered primarily with ash. Pompeii was also relatively easy for excavators to understand because it is what is called a synchronic site, which means that it has one main stratum that can be easily studied since it was destroyed at one moment in time. The traditional date for this is August 24th, 79 CE although recent textual and archaeological evidence suggests that November 23rd may be the correct time. At Pompeii, the digger can come quickly down to a precise level of destruction for the site and can harvest a wealth of valuable and fascinating objects without worrying about differentiating the different levels of the site, or what is known as the site’s stratigraphy.

Fig. Intro-8 Jean Duplessis-Bertaux (1743-1813), Antiquities from Herculaneum Being Moved from the Portici Museum in Naples. Engraving, late 18th to early 19th century. Photo: Fotografica Foglia. Location: Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, Italy. Photo Credit: Scala / Art Resource, N.Y.

Pompeii is, however, also a diachronic site, which means that it had a history and numerous phases from its creation and development before it was destroyed and even post-destruction phases which had both natural and man-made aspects. So much interest has been placed in the harvesting of the synchronic destruction level that the diachronic aspects of Pompeii have only begun to be studied in recent times. But Pompeii illustrates an important rule in archaeology: contemporary events take place horizontally across a site and changes in a site can usually be documented vertically. One reason that the original excavators of Pompeii did not pursue the site diachronically was not only their lack of interest in the history of the site and their desire to extract all of the booty first but also because the concept of stratigraphic excavation did not exist yet.

JAMES HUTTON AND CHARLES LYELL

The concept of stratification, the fact that layers or strata are generally laid down, one on top of the other, as time passes, was formulated by a scholar of Classics, specifically Latin and Greek languages, at the same time that Pompeii was being excavated. James Hutton, known commonly today as the Father of Modern Geology, came from a reasonably well off Edinburgh family but his merchant father died when James was an infant (Fig. Intro-9). His mother, recognizing the boy was a genius, insisted that he be given as fine an education as she could afford for him, although she had four other children to raise. Young James made the most of his opportunities and was accepted by the prestigious University of Edinburgh in Scotland at the age of 14 in 1740. He quickly proved to be more than a boy genius in the study of Humanities. Geology, meteorology, farming innovations—all engaged his quicksilver mind.

He formulated the concept of Uniformitarianism, showing that the Earth evolved slowly over a long period of time. His major work, Theory of the Earth; or an Investigation of the Laws Observable in the Composition, Dissolution, and Restoration of Land upon the Globe was published in 1788, too late to be of use in the early excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Nonetheless, the conclusion that a scientific analysis and methodology, based on careful observation, could explain the evolution of the world was a bold and imaginative contribution, and of course openly differed from notions that the changes to the world could only be explained through direct divine intervention and that they had happened over a very short period of time. His ideas opened up Hutton to strong attacks, with some scholars and clergy declaring him to be a dangerous atheist.

Fig. Intro-9 Portrait of James Hutton, Scottish geologist, 18th century, (1875). Hutton (1726-1797) first published his Theory of the Earth in 1785, then an expanded version in 1795. In it he expounded his theory of Uniformitarianism which is the basis of modern geology. From Life of Sir Roderick I. Murchison by Archibald Geikie. (London, 1875). Oxford Science Archive, Oxford, Great Britain. Photo Credit: HIP / Art Resource, N.Y.

Not only were Hutton’s ideas not able to be applied to Pompeii but they did not gain widespread recognition until 1830 with the publication of the first part of Charles Lyell’s multi-volume summa entitled Principles of Geology in which he presented to a wide readership the essential concept of Uniformitarianism. These ideas from Hutton, transmitted and expanded upon by Lyell, inspired Charles Darwin, who studied for a couple of years at Edinburgh, and helped in his formulations of theories about the evolution and origin of species. Indeed, Lyell was a British lawyer and distinguished geologist who became a close friend of Darwin (Fig. Intro-10). James Hutton had died at age 50 a generation before, in 1797, the very year in which Lyell was born, but his influence on archaeology, anthropology and naturalism was profound and enduring.

From the pioneering scholars Hutton and Lyell came the concept of the Law of Superposition which states that where one geological or archaeological layer overlies another, the lower layer was deposited first. There are exceptions such as reversed stratigraphy, which can result from natural or man-made mega-disasters, but nonetheless in most cases, the process of excavation removes levels in reverse order to the way they were originally deposited: from youngest to oldest. This concept developed in the first half of the 19th century, forming the basic principle of archaeological excavation today.

Fig. Intro-10 Charles Darwin (1809-82), English naturalist, with Charles Lyell, (1797-1875), English geologist, and Joseph Dalton Hooker, (1817-1911), English botanist, his confidants. Artist unknown. Royal College of Surgeons. Photo Credit: Eileen Tweedy / The Art Archive at Art Resource, N.Y.

GIUSEPPE FIORELLI (1823–1896)

Slowly, classical archeology began to employ more methodology in the 19th century. It always lagged behind the field of anthropology in developing new approaches to recovering and interpreting material. Classical archaeologists, unlike anthropologists investigating extremely ancient or non-literate cultures, had an abundant literature in Greek and Latin which could be used to tell the story of the ancient Romans, in some cases day by day and year by year. Artifact recovery from sites was designed to fit in with this historical approach and there was not much interest in the exciting new methodologies that anthropologists were developing, particularly the notion that the found artifact was just one small part of the story and that sites needed to be considered holistically despite an abundance of literary evidence.

Classical archaeologists who sought new approaches to archaeology were not numerous, but one was a passionate and engaged young scholar named Giuseppe Fiorelli. A man of modest means and demeanor (there is no known surviving photograph of him), he began working at Pompeii in the 1840s and quickly developed a reputation as a magnificent Latinist and a meticulous excavator. Placed as a field supervisor in charge of a portion of Pompeii, he immediately attempted to halt the selling of antiquities and the widespread intrigue, bribery and corruption. Running afoul of the Bourbon King Ferdinand II and his allies among the clergy in Naples and Rome because of his desire to see Italy become unified and more representative of the average person, he was declared to be a dangerous liberal and was thrown into prison for one year. This was part of a royal crackdown which landed more than 2000 dissidents of the time behind bars.

Despite this horrendous setback, Fiorelli continued to write while in prison but when he was finally released all of his efforts, including a substantial text on the history of the excavations of Pompeii, were confiscated by the police. He was repeatedly denied the chance to teach and even to conduct research until, in desperation, he was forced to eke out a living by laying asphalt with a road crew. Everything he attempted to write was either taken away or had to be hidden. The king’s brother, the Count of Syracuse, attempted to intervene to save Fiorelli’s life, partly because the Count was greatly interested in uncovering more spoils and treasure for himself. However, Fiorelli came under attack again and was forced to flee for his life, managing to board a steamship to take him to safety in Livorno.

His indomitable spirit and passion for methodology and integrity in archaeology continued to inspire him and once the monarchy of Ferdinand II ended and the dream of a unified Italy resulted through Giuseppe Garibaldi’s Campaign of 1860, Victor Emmanuel II became the first king of the new Italian nation. Fiorelli was immediately appointed university professor in Naples and, now that he was on the winning side politically, realized his lifelong dream to become the director of excavations at Pompeii in 1860. Fiorelli managed to reproduce his masterworks begun in jail and between 1860 and 1864 published the three volumes of his Pompeianarum Antiquitatum Historia which further cemented his reputation as an historian, classicist and excavator.

Fiorelli wasted no time in implementing his creative ideas regarding archaeological investigation. Previously excavation meant digging up the streets of Pompeii and then tunneling into the houses, leaving huge piles of rubbish around the site because the excavators were really looters seeking treasure. He reasoned that the presentation and conservation of the site had to be taken into consideration for future generations. A neatness devotee, he quickly removed the accumulated trash pits from the site and, using common sense, set out to excavate the houses from the surface of the earth down, rather than following the streets.

His concept was to dig down through the roofs of the houses first, preserving everything structural as he proceeded. If he found charred wood or organic deposits, he scraped them out and replaced them with new wood before continuing. This led to the preservation, for the first time, of the upper floors of Pompeian houses. He would dig away the A zone or topsoil, then encounter the lapilli or layer of grey ash that had covered the buildings. Finally, poking up through this layer he would find traces of carbon, or brick walls or mortared walls or ashlar blocks, and anytime he encountered anything that belonged to an ancient structure he attempted to preserve it. He even was able to isolate balconies, projecting from the upper stories and overlooking the streets. These were known as maeniana after Gaius Maenius, the Roman consul, dictator and war hero who introduced bleachers, or upper level seating, into the Roman forum so that the people could watch gladiator contests being held there in the fourth century BCE.

Fiorelli was also an excellent teacher and many students were trained by him in his meticulous techniques. He started a journal to record the material culture and architecture that he found and he preserved his structures by putting protective coverings of wood and tile over them. In his teachings and writings he stressed the importance of classification and in order to more clearly make reference to the large area that Pompeii encompassed, he divided the town into regions, insulae (city blocks) and domus (houses), a system still in use today.

Although scholars do not usually know about the struggle of Fiorelli to realize his personal dream, they do remember him for his most spectacular innovation: the idea of scraping out the organic material that was found in the area covered by the lapilli and replacing it with plaster of Paris casts (Fig. Intro-13). In this manner he was able to bring back to life deteriorated wooden shutters, clothing, roots of plants and trapped animals and human bodies in their agonal positions (death agonies). The first four bodies that he cast created a tremendous impact all across Europe. In 1863 the London Quarterly Review stated:

THOMAS JEFFERSON AND MONTICELLO

Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and third president of the United States, was a great admirer of ancient Rome and was a largely self-taught scholar of many cultures, both ancient and modern (Fig. Intro-11). Unlike George Washington, who was a great general, enormously wealthy landowner and statesman but not an intellectual, Jefferson was a true Renaissance man, who knew ancient Greek and Latin, as well as French, Italian and Spanish. Before being elected president of the United States, he held numerous distinguished positions, including that of ambassador to France, where his language facility, natural wit and intellectual brilliance proved useful and charming.

Fig. Intro-11 Mather Brown (1761-1831) painting of Thomas Jefferson. Oil on canvas, 90.8 x 72.4 cm, 1786. Bequest of Charles Francis Adams. Location: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Photo Credit: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution / Art Resource, N.Y.

Fig. Intro-12 Location: Thomas Jefferson Home at Monticello, near Charlottesville, Virginia. Painted by Allyn Cox (1896-1982). Photo: Gérard Blot. Musée de la cooperation franco-americaine, Blerancourt, France Photo Credit:© RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, N.Y.

While in France he saw the Maison Carrée, a Roman temple at Nimes, and decided much later to adapt it for the state capitol building in Richmond, Virginia. The basic form and proportions of the two structures are similar, but Jefferson changed the interior to allow office and meeting spaces and generous windows and changed the order from Corinthian to the Ionic, which he preferred. As a craftsman, architect and designer, Jefferson had also built his own remarkable estate, Monticello, in Virginia which was derived from a combination of ancient Roman monuments such as the Golden House of the Emperor Nero, Classically inspired Renaissance architecture of the great northern Italian architect Palladio, and contemporary interior design by England’s Robert Adam, which itself emulated ancient Roman paintings. The result was that Jefferson facilitated the introduction of the Classical tradition into American architecture (Figs. Intro-11,12).

Fig. Intro-13 Plaster cast of a dog in Pompeii, victim of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. Cast made between 1850-1899. Location: Museum, Pompeii, Italy Photo Credit: Alinari / Art Resource, N.Y.

We have death itself molded 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.

In 1875 Fiorelli was put in charge of all museums in Italy. His legacy of integrity, courage, passion and archaeological innovation should not be forgotten. It must be noted, however, that his method was developed for the synchronic investigation of a very particular site, Pompeii. He had little or no interest in stratigraphy, and indeed his school developed into opponents of the stratigraphic method when it was being introduced to Italy.

RODOLFO LANCIANI (1845–1929)

Unlike Giuseppe Fiorelli, Rodolfo Lanciani came from a noble family from Guidonia Montecelio northeast of Rome, but the family later moved to Rome where he was born. Following in the footsteps of his father and brother-in-law, he began as an engineer and surveyor, but he learned to combine his mapping skills with his passion for ancient Roman topography and archaeology, inspired by excavations in the Ostia area at the harbor built by the Roman Emperor Trajan. His special skills, combined with his rapidly developing knowledge of archaeology, led to his desire to assemble a complete map of ancient Rome and his persistence led to the very first detailed plotting of everything that was known about the ancient city. He became a forerunner of those modern digitization specialists who present every detail of a location or monument, although he had to do it all without the aid of computers and GPS. Named Professor and Chair of Roman Topography at the University of Rome, he went on to become supervisor of all excavation