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THE GOLDEN AGE OF POMPEII

The second century B.C. is the “golden age” of Pompeii, a century in which profound transformations in urban planning, of the main places of worship and of the ways of living, were   recorded.

At this point in history, Puteoli became the main port of Rome and began to perform a function of “port-warehouse”, ie, of a large port with a multiplicity of piers and warehouses where the goods from all over the Mediterranean, especially the Eastern part , were unloaded and stored. From this great “port-warehouse”, redistribution took place on a regional scale, based on a hierarchically subordinate port system in which the “epineion” (emporium) of Pompeii played a central role. Through the course of the Sarno river, this dock redistributed the Mediterranean products to the more internal areas such as Nola, Nocera and Acerra. (1)

This progressive enrichment of Pompeii allowed important urban and architectural innovations in the Vesuvian city, innovations that linked Pompeii to the other allied cities of Rome. These breakthroughs were inspired by the new models of urbanization of “International Hellenism”, which Rome appropriated starting from the second century. B.C.

It is precisely in Samnite Pompeii that this phenomenon of progressive adaptation to the Hellenistic-Roman models developed, that is, in the period before Pompeii became a Sillan colony of 82 BC.

There are many monuments, both public and private, from the second century. B.C. that illustrate the development of the city of Pompeii and the adoption of the models of “International Hellenism”: monumentalization of the Forum, reorganization of the so-called  Triangular Forum, with the construction of the adjacent theater and campus/gymnasium, construction of the first thermal facilities, construction of large private houses with atrium and peristyle. The case of Pompeii is unique: a city timelessly preserved in its entirety, covered  with pumice stones and volcanic ash by the  Vesuvian eruption of 79 Ad.  The city clearly shows us how the process of enriching the urban landscape according to the canons of “International Hellenism” , already in practise in Sicily, also involved the Greek and Italic cities of Romanized Southern Italy. Naturally, in the peninsula the architectural models were filtered from Rome and adapted to both political-administrative and cultural needs of a society that was by now profoundly Romanized. Pompeii and the Campania region, in fact, reproduced some of the oldest examples of monumental building typologies that later, in the height of the imperial era, would be exported from Rome to the provinces, starting from Sicily: theaters, amphitheaters, baths, basilicas, aqueducts. (2)

In Pompeii, local patricians vied with those who came from Rome to practice the “otium” (SEE NOTE) in the maritime villas of Campania, in an “Asiatica luxuria” – this unbridled luxury that was inspired by the grandiose Macedonian courts – was made possible by the new riches of oriental origin. To this end, suburban villas, a new building type, arose, and the new architectural elements with  Greek names or in Greek style, such as the “peristyle”, “exedra”, “diaeta”, “triclinium” and “oecus”, were incorporated in the mansions in the city. .(3)

One of the most sumptuous examples of “domus” (House) built in Pompeii in the 2nd century AD. is the “House of the Faun” with its magnificent mosaic (more than one and a half million tesserae), which represents the decisive moment of the battle of Alexander the Great against Darius III of Persia at Issus, when the Persian king, in the moment of defeat, attempts to flee.

NOTE: This Latin term  had the idea of withdrawing from one’s daily business (negotium) or affairs to engage in activities that were considered to be artistically valuable or enlightening (i.e. speaking, writing, philosophy).

 

 

BIBLIOGRAFIA:

  1. Luana Toniolo  “Commerciare” –in Massimo Osanna e Carlo Rescigno, “Pompei e i Greci”, Electa 2017, pp. 231
  2.  Gioacchino Francesco La Torre – Sicilia e Magna Grecia – Editori Laterza 2011 – pag.243
  3. Eugenio La Rocca, Mariette e Arnold de Vos, Guida archeologica di Pompei, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1976 pp. 33-34

 

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THE ETRUSCAN WOMAN

Women played a very important role in Etruscan society.

Both the practice of Matronymic (a social norm according to which children took their mother’s name) and the participation of women in banquets, unlike the Greek symposia, show how important the woman in Etruscan society was. It also appears that simply having an Etruscan mother was sufficient to ensure a child Etruscan citizenship.

Working with wool was the symbol of women just as working with weapons was that of men. Educating was the destiny of the Etruscan woman, spinning  her emblem.

Moreover, from the end of the 9th century BC, some women also presented a pair of equine bits among their funerary objects: in the necropolis of Veio (Tuscany), for example, there was no substantial numerical difference between the tombs of males and females indicated as wagon holders. Probably the bits in the male graves could indicate war or hunting wagons and those in the female graves could allude to a carriage.

Those women were undoubtedly at the top of the various Villanovan social groups, perhaps the companions of the warrior-chiefs: After all, marriage, at least from the end of the 9th century BC, when relations with different communities within and outside the individual cultural areas are more evident, began to be  considered a means of creating bonds of solidarity or of alliance. Women, much the same as raw or processed materials, or like livestock, could be included in the exchange of gifts or repayments. Female attire was also generally richer than that of males and starting from the second half of the 9th century BC, sumptuous parures characterized certain tombs: the woman adorned with precious goods was herself a valuable asset to be exhibited in order to manifest the “status” of the family group.

 

Excerpt from:   Gilda Bartoloni, “La Cultura Villanoviana. All’inizio della storia etrusca”, Carocci Editore, Roma pag.187
 

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THE FALL OF NAPOLEON AND RECOVERY OF THE STOLEN ART WORKS

 

On June 18, 1815, the Battle of Waterloo signaled Napoleon’s final defeat and the end of the Napoleonic era. After his fall, the Congress of Vienna (1815) re-established the old pre-Napoleonic kingdoms (Restoration) in Europe. However the “new king” of France, Louis XVIII, had stated in Parliament that works of art belonged to France “by a stronger law than the right of war”. Nevertheless,  despite a cooling of Allied disposition following the Waterloo defeat,  during the Vienna Congress the restitutions were treated as the object of negotiations rather than seen as an obligation.

Furthermore, each of the countries concerned, negotiated for themselves without following a common strategy or direction, in order to regain as much as possible of what had been expropriated. Since the collaboration of the Louvre Museum was necessary for the recovery of the seized assets, Dominique Vivan-Denon (director-general of museums and head of the new Musée Napoléon) benefitted greatly, since he as general manager was among the few to have the complete picture of what had entered France by way of the requisitions.  The country which sided decisively in favor of restitution was England, in the person of  the Foreign Minister Viscount Castlereagh and the Duke of Wellington, (Napoleon’s vanquisher at Waterloo). Both rushed to support the rights of nations deemed less defended, such as the Netherlands and the Papal States which were the ones that had in fact suffered the greatest losses. Wellington, as shown in a letter sent to Castlereagh and published in the French press, even sent his troops to the Louvre Museum, ordering his men to remove Flemish and Dutch paintings from the walls. As for the Vatican, British collaboration went as far as covering transport costs without accepting the offer of various antiquities as a sign of gratitude.

Antonio Canova was appointed in 1802 by pope Pius VII Chiaramonti as “General Inspector of Antiquities and the Arts”, and it was he who acted as mediator for the Vatican. On 2 October 1815 the great artist began to examine the works stolen in Rome and the Papal States. The prestige enjoyed by the very famous sculptor among the sovereigns of Europe – not at all challenged by the sarcasm of Minister Talleyrand, who called him “monsieur l’emballeur” – and his undisputed professional competence allowed him to do an excellent job. The recovery, however, was partial, sometimes because he was hindered due to dimensions, other times in order not to further exacerbate already tense relationships

The Austrian government instead dealt with what had been stolen from Lombardy and Veneto: one of the most delicate operations being the recovery of the Horses of San Marco, which had been hoisted on the “Arc de Triomphe” in the Carrousel Square in Paris. The removal of such an important symbol of Napoleonic power threatened to provoke protests from the population and was therefore carried out at night, preventing access to the square in order to avoid disorder.

On the part of French intellectuals very few voices condemned the arrogant policy of theft imposed by Napoleon: but at least one rose in a passionate defense of the rationale of the vanquished. It was that of Antoine Quatremère de Quincy, who in “Lettres à Miranda”, an almost clandestine work released in 1796 while the author was in prison, vehemently exposed his dissent. The interlocutor is the Venezuelan general, Francisco de Miranda, who had fought for the independence of his country and had participated in the French Revolution. Quatremère entrusted to him his reflections on the illegitimacy of requisitions in an ardent defense of the conservation of works of art in places of origin: “dividing is destroying” because “the assembled objects light up and explain each other” . Rome is seen “as a whole” not only for its objects but also for its places and atmospheres, and some are inseparable from others.

 

                CONSEQUENCES OF THE RECOVERY OF THE NAPOLEONIC ART

 With the recovery of seized works of art, there emerged a new sentiment within the offended states: an awareness of belonging to a nation of artistic heritage, one which was the foundation of their cultural identity. Therefore the concept of aesthetic, academic or economic value traditionally attributed to works of art, was overcome and these now became considered as assets linked to the Nation.

 

 

 

Excerpt from:  Maria Teresa Fiorio, Il museo nella storia,   Pearson, 2018,  pp 81-83

 

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VENUS ANADYOMENE IN POMPEII

 

 

In the ancient world, the ideal of female beauty derived from a Greek canon, from marble sculpted deities by artists who modeled the best  features of various women to create a virtual, ideal and absolute beauty. This ideal beauty, combined with the hairstyles and clothing of the classical tradition, has always been well represented artistically  in Pompeian painting and sculpture.

A work of art which can be considered a real cultural icon of Greek beauty is the famous “Venus  Anadyomene” (from Greek, “Venus Rising From the Sea”), the goddess of love, depicted in the act of rising from the sea and resting her hands on wet hair. Originally it was created by the famous Greek painter Apelles in the 4th century B.C. for the Asklepeion, the temple dedicated to Asclepius, on Cos,  a Greek island facing Turkey. According to the different versions of the story, either Phryne, the model used by the great artist was a very famous hetaera [ among the Greeks, a courtesan, normally a stranger, free or a slave, elegantly dressed and, in general, rather highly cultured], or Campaspe, lover of Alexander the Great.

The painting was later brought to Rome by Augustus, and placed in the Temple of Venus Genetrix, to evoke the mother of the “gens Iulia” (Strabo 14.2.19). However this masterpiece of Greek art was also very famous in the area of ​​Mount Vesuvius. This is confirmed by an inscription found in Pompeii where the scriptor, the writer, compared his beloved to the Venus of Apelles (CIL IV 6842 = CLE 2057): Si quis non vidi(t) Venerem quam pin[xit Apelles] | pupa mea aspiciat: tali set i[lla nitet].

The wide diffusion of this model is confirmed by the dozens of copies of the Venus  Anadyomene spread among all the social classes of the population, at various artistic levels, from marble and bronze statues, as well as wall frescoes (such as in Pompeii in the House del Prince of Naples – see photo), but it is above all in the decoration on small tools of instrumentum domesticus, in particular on hair pins, where she was represented. Sculpted in bone, they were relatively inexpensive and multi-purpose instruments, widespread even in modest-sized houses, ubiquitous in female beauty care: they served as sharp instruments for applying makeup and also for dividing and styling hair. The hair pins  could remain fixed in the hair to be within easy reach in case of need and were also portable amulets. Such a hair pin, together with an amulet pendant also in the shape of Anadyomene, was found in the house of L. Elvio Severo in Pompeii (1). In addition, the box for ointments and toiletry items in the Imperial house in Pompeii was secured by a bronze padlock in the shape of the same goddess. (2)

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

  1. Berg, “Donne medico a Pompei?”, in A.Buonopane, F. Cenerini (a cura di), “Donna e lavoro nella documentazione epigrafica” , Atti I seminario sulla condizione femminile nella documentazione epigrafica (Bologna, ottobre 2002), Faenza 2003, pp. 131-154
  2. Ria Berg  “Attrarre” – in Massimo Osanna e Carlo Rescigno, “Pompei e i Greci”, Electa 2017, pp. 213-214

 

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THE NATIONAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM OF NAPLES

In 1731 King Charles of Bourbon inherited the famous “Farnese collection” from his mother, Elisabetta Farnese. When the enlightened sovereign ascended the throne of Naples in 1734, he took these splendid works of art with him in dowry to the Parthenopean city. Charles furthermore ordered the excavations of Herculaneum (1738) and Pompeii (1748), which led to the discovery of an impressive number of Roman Art treasures.

However it was only in 1777 that Charles’s son, Ferdinand IV of Bourbon, determined by decree to gather these great dynastic collections, (Farnesian, Pompeian and Herculaneum) together in the  “Palazzo dei Vecchi Studi” (the Old University) and earmark them for public use. Moreover, this new building was envisaged as an encyclopedic museum where all human knowledge should be situated: works of art, books, papyri, studios  and even an astronomical observatory. Following the dominant Enlightenment culture, the educational aspect of this museum and its importance as a public utility were emphasized. Consequently,Ferdinand intended to bring together workshops, laboratories, painting, sculpture, and restoration schools and more. It was aimed to create a museum-workshop-school in the building. However, in order to do this, the old “Palazzo degli Studi” required profound changes and, in 1806 when the French arrived, the building was still under restoration.

During the French domination, first Giuseppe Bonaparte, and then Gioacchino Murat, abandoned the museum’s encyclopedic project for nearly 10 years, “reducing” it to a simple venue for the exposition of the imposing Farnese and Bourbon collections.

During  the Napoleonic period, all the leading museums in the territories conquered by the French armies were stripped of their most important masterpieces which were channelled  to the Louvre Museum in Paris. But the Archaeological Museum of Naples (like the Brera Museum in Milan) did not suffer from depletion; in fact it was enriched with famous masterpieces.

Murat sought an autonomous kingdom in Napoleonic Europe. The new director of the Museum, Michele Arditi (1807-1838), immediately showed his worth: first of all he introduced  more severe management of the personnel compared to the previous state of disorder; the obligation and control of daily working hours; respect for a precise work timetable and the prohibition of objects being taken out of the Museum. After the fall of  Murat (1815), during the Bourbon restoration, Ferdinand I again confirmed Michele Arditi as director of this institution which was growing continually.

What clearly made the difference between French and Bourbon management of the Archaeological Museum  was that, with his return, King Ferdinand I explicitly stated that the collections of the Archaeological Museum were his “allodial property” and therefore alienable. The royal sites belonged to the Crown – and were therefore not saleable, – but the collections were property of the king (and therefore privately owned). The idea advanced by the French kings, that artistic masterpieces were  protected by the State, was therefore denied by this declaration of Ferdinand I.

The restored Bourbon monarchy maintained  the original educational and public purpose of the Archaeological Museum of Naples, but at the same time it displayed a mentality not in line with the most modern Enlightenment principles.

Later, only in 1822, would the transfer of the archaeological artifacts from the “Herculaneum Museum” of Portici be completed, but despite all efforts, the Royal Bourbon Museum continued to seem  an overcrowded repository  without any precise exhibition criteria. Infact, the first extensive re-organization only took place during the Unification of Italy under the decisive intervention of Giuseppe Fiorelli.

 

Excerpt from:  Nadia Barrella e Ludovico Solima, Musei da svelare, Luciano editore, Napoli, 2011, pp. 17-23   

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