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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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WINE IN POMPEII -Second Part

The name “Vesuvinum” has been found on wine amphorae in both Pompeii and in Carthage. “Pompeianum” and “Surrentinum” (from Sorrento) were both known in Rome. Pompeian wine amphorae have also been found in Ostia (Italy), Ampurias (Spain), Alesia (Gaul), Vindonissa and Augst (Switzerland), Trier (Germany), and even in Stanmore, Middlesex (Britain). At Carthage more than 40 amphorae were found in a dump dating from c. 43 to 25 BC with the stamp of L. Eumachius, probably the father of the famous Pompeian priestess Eumachia. In the same dump there were six other examples of amphorae stamped with known Pompeian names.
Also the Vetti brothers (Aulus Vettius Restitutus and Aulus Vettius Conviva) seem to have been great wine merchants, as shown by Matteo della Corte. Thus the figure of Priapus (see Note below), son of Dionysus, placed at the entrance of the beautiful residence, becomes very significant. And even the basket at the feet of the god, filled with fruit among which grapes are the most important, becomes a clear allusion to the prosperity of the funds and vineyards of the Vetti, source of their riches. (1)

Also noteworthy is the Termopolium of Vetutius Placidus, an example of social mobility. At the time of discovery, archaeologists found in 683 sesterces (3 kg). This is one of the few cases in which it is almost certain that that sum constituted the actual collection of the day. (2)

NOTE:
Priapo = God of Nature’s fertility, he was a native of the Middle East. He was called the son of Aphrodite and Dionysus or another son of Chione [In Greek mythology, Chione was the daughter of Boreas, the god of the North wind] and Dionysus.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
1) Matteo della Corte, Case ed abitanti di Pompei, Fausto Fiorentino Editore – Napoli, 1965, pag.70
2) Eugenio La Rocca, Mariette e Arnold de Vos, Guida archeologica di Pompei, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1976, pag. 217

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WINE IN POMPEII – First Part

 

Wine was the most widespread drink and certainly the most loved by the Romans in their daily diet and an important element of convivial moments. The Romans had compiled real classifications of the finest wines, among which Falerno excelled, but Surrentinum and  Vesbius or Vesuvinum also enjoyed a good reputation. Particularly appreciated wines were also those produced in Greece and in the Aegean islands, for example the lyttios, greatly appreciated by the Pompeians, as shown by the amphorae of particular shapes found and the inscriptions read on them. The wine was never drunk pure, but generally served with water, hot or cold depending on the season. Furthermore, liqueur wines such as mulsum -the best mulsum was obtained from the must -, passum and defrutum were produced. Defrutum was a condiment based on reduced must used by cooks of ancient Rome; together with garum it was one of the most used sauces in the preparation of all sorts of dishes. Poor drinks were lora, obtained from maceration in water of the pressed marc (vinacce) and  posca, a drink of water and vinegar.

From the wine sold in Pompeian thermopolia (wine bars) we also know the cost, reported by the inscription CIL IV 1679: “Hedoné proclaims: Here we drink for only one axis; with two you will drink better wine; with four you’ll drink Falerno ”. (1)

Most of the wine consumed in the cities was made locally. At least forty local farms and estates had cellae vinariae or wineries, some producing on an enormous scale. These estates are characterized by a large number of dolia (large earthenware vase), buried up to the rim (defossa), in which the wine was stored as it matured. “Villa Regina” at Boscoreale had eighteen of these. Some were for olives and grain, but the vast majority contained wine. Many of them were still capped with terracotta lids and sealed with mortar, showing they were full when the eruption happened. The wine remained in dolia until the following year, when it was sold or taken to the owner’s house in the city. The transportation of large quantities of wine required considerable effort, as each dolium could hold over twenty amphoras’ worth (about 120 gallons or 545 litres). In Pompeii, in front of the Forum Thermal Baths, we have also found a thermopolium where on one of its dolia (large jars), used for fermenting wine, the name “A Apulei Hilarionis” (“of A. Apuleius Hilarion”) was stamped.

Amphorae often carried a painted inscription. Some were basic, like those on the amphorae from Villa della Pisanella marked RUBR(um) = rubrum, the Latin for “red”. Others served as address labels. A fragment of an amphora from Pompeii bears the words, “For Albucia Tyche at Pompeii”, suggesting Albucia was a landlady. (2)

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

  1. Grete Stefani, Michele Borgongino, Cibus. L’alimentazione degli antichi romani. Le testimonianze dell’area vesuviana in AAVV Cibi e Sapori a Pompei e Dintorni , Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei, Edizioni Flavius,  2005, pp. 77-78
  2. Paul Roberts, Life and death in Pompeii and Herculaneum, The British Museum Press, 2013, pp. 66-68

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GREEK URBAN PLANNING IN MAGNA GREECE AND SICILY – First Part

The first Greek colonies founded in Southern Italy and Sicily since the mid-8th century BC were organised according to the “polis model” that developed in the most advanced areas of Greece during the Geometric period (900-700 BC). The sites chosen by the Greek colonists for their settlements were the result of a careful knowledge of the territory derived from decades of frequentation of the Sicilian and peninsular coasts. The settlers analysed carefully the presence of hostile people, environmental conditions and the availability of resources (especially water), and normally they founded their “pòleis” (cities) on the coast. Their cities were founded on islands or islets near the coast (Ischia, Ortigia), on low promontories jutting out on the coast (Naxos, Elòro, Mylai, Taranto), on heights overlooking the sea or sloping (Cuma, Crotone, Caulona, Locri, Megara Iblea, Gela, Selinunte, Himera, Velia), near the mouth of important rivers (Sibari, Crotone, Metaponto, Naxos, Reggio, Selinunte, Gela) or near very well defined natural rivers (Taranto, Messina, Siracusa). Extremely rare were the internal foundations, only a few kilometres away from the sea (Leontini, Agrigento) or many more kilometres (for example Hipponion), and the coastal ones completely flat (Sibari, Metaponto, Poseidonia).
Once the most favorable area was identified and freed from any indigenous occupants, the first settlement could develop without any previous religious or traditional constraint. Therefore this condition allowed to implement a (REAL remove) rational planning of spaces, based on principles of substantial egalitarianism among the first settlers who received plots of land where they could build their dwellings (oikòpeda) and from which their sustenance derived . Thus the definition of the urban space appeared clear from the beginning. The “oikistes”, the guide of the colonists, highlighted the area destined to the city by tracing ritual furrows or by laying terminal stones, subsequently fortified through walls (earth walls and stones) and/or wooden palisades. Then they were replaced by massive walls made of squared and dry juxtaposed stone blocks (generally during the 6th century BC) such as to be immediately distinguishable with respect to the surrounding areas, reserved for the necropolis, all strictly external to the “pomoerium” . This word, borrowing the term from the best-known practices of the Etruscan-Italic and Roman world, came from the classical contraction of the Latin phrase “post moerium”, literally “beyond the wall”: in that religious boundary around the city, nobody could build, live and cultivate.
The settlers, when they founded a city, took into account the prospects for demographic growth and strengthening of the settlement from the outset. In fact, most cities have developed over the centuries within the limits defined at the time of the foundation. Only a few colonial “pòleis” (cities) have recorded over time such a great phenomenon of demographic growth to make necessary enlargements of the urban space: it usually started from the Classical period (480 B.C. – 323 B.C.). The cases of Taranto and Syracuse are emblematic, whose neighborhoods of more recent expansion superimposed on the necropolis of the Archaic period (600 B.C. – 480 B.C.).
Despite the very limited documentation for the first phases of life of the colonies, it is nevertheless evident that the need to immediately distinguish the spaces destined for community practices was primary:

1. Administration of the new “pòlis” (with buildings for the citizens’ assembly)
2. The “agora” (with the offices of the magistrates and where the commercial transactions took place)
3. Sacred areas (used for public cults, dedicated to the protective deities of the community, almost always the same venerated even in the motherland).

Often the “agora” – central public space – stood in the centre of the city, so to be easily accessible, and large enough to accommodate events that involved the entire community, not only of a political-administrative nature, but also religious, military, competitive and ludic.

Excerpt from: Giocacchino Francesco La Torre, Sicilia e Magna Grecia, Editori Laterza, 2011, pp. 157-160

 

 

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NAPOLEON AND HIS ART THEFTS

In the history of the western world the figure of Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France and King of Italy, is comparable only to that of Julius Caesar. Like him, Napoleon was an unparalleled military genius and a great legislator, in a moment of transition from one historical era to another, deeply marked by the upheavals of the French Revolution.

In 1796,  he was sent to fight on a front considered secondary, Italy, with an army of 38,000 poorly equipped soldiers, but the war results were extraordinary, so also were his “art thefts” (Wescher). Napoleon’s advance was favourably seen both in the cities submitted to Austria, and in the territories of the Papal State where Bologna, Ferrara, Ancona and the occupation of Rome itself were falling in rapid succession. In our country the Napoleonic commissioners were in charge of requisitions. In addition to the painter and collector Wicar, was the painter Antoine Gros, who had long stayed in Italy, the sculptor Jean-Baptiste Moitte, and the engraver Dutertre. Many of them already had a good knowledge of Italy but they used also guide books, collections of engravings as well as reports of travelers of the “Grand Tour” with their descriptions of the main masterpieces kept in churches and palaces.

Napoleon’s march met with no obstacles: even in the States of the Church the intolerance for the papal government was so strong as to make Napoleon appear to be a “liberator”, and as such he was greeted by Foscolo, who  in 1799 dedicated a famous ode to him (“To Napoleon Liberator “).

To give a semblance of legitimacy to the raids perpetrated by his armies, Napoleon had included the requisitions of works of art in the clauses of the armistices and peace treaties: the forced transfer of so many masterpieces would thus be included in the agreements and, instead of appearing as an abuse, it would have been accepted as part of the obligations of the vanquished.  As for the moral aspects, the Directoire justified itself by claiming that the works of art, as created by free spirits, had to be brought into the homeland of freedom, France,  which would also have provided for their better preservation.

The richest haul was collected in Rome, where French troops entered in February 1798.  Pope Pius VI Braschi – the great proponent of the “Pius Clementinus Museum” – was deposed, taken prisoner and sent to France where he died the following year. In the Papal States the Republic was proclaimed. The French commissioners then entered into action and dedicated themselves to the requisition of works of art, while assuring the population that the ancient monuments would not be touched. In reality they entertained the idea of ​​removing the two colossal statues of the “Dioscuri” in front of the “Quirinale” and of dismantling the “Trajan Column”, projects fortunately  abandoned  due to the impossibility of realizing them. On the other hand the sculptures, which had been admired in “The Courtyard of Statues” by Bramante since the Renaissance – such as the “Laocoon”, the “Apollo of the Belvedere”, the “Nile” and the “Tiber”, the “Sleeping Ariadne”, the “Torso” – or masterpieces of the Capitoline Museums as the “Spinario” (“Boy with Thorn”) donated by Sisto IV in 1471, the “Pudica Venus”, the “Discobolus”, all took the road to Paris. As it happens in the turbulent days of every occupation, there were countless episodes of vandalism. Furthermore, the French commissioners, once they had drawn up the list of works to be sent to Paris, began to trade, selling off a quantity of paintings and sculptures considered to be of lower quality.

On 27 and 28 July a very long procession paraded through the streets of Paris to reach the Louvre Museum and a shrewd and spectacular show renewed the glories of the Roman triumphs with an exhibition of the conquered treasures. The boxes were marked by large writings that indicated their contents, but the most famous “preys”, such as the “Laocoon” and the “Horses of San Marco”, were offered, unpacked, to the astonishment of the citizens. The great absentee from this grand parade was Napoleon Bonaparte, who had embarked for Egypt, opening a new front of hostility. Having abandoned the ideals of the “Musée Révolutionnaire”, the great French museum, renamed “Musée Napoléon” since 1803, now takes on the glorification aspect of Napoleonic power, an image of the political and cultural supremacy of France seen through the exhibition of the most representative masterpieces of the great traditions of European States.

So much power was identified in the Louvre Museum that in 1810, Napoleon’s wedding to Maria Luisa of Austria was celebrated in the “Grande Gallerie”, which was cleared of paintings and sculptures for the occasion.

In 1815 the Battle of Waterloo marked the end of the Napoleonic era, but some “art thefts” from the Italian Peninsula remained and are still in France today: the “Tiber” statue, The “Crowning of thorns”, painted by Titian and other relevant masterpieces.

 

Excerpt from: Maria Teresa Iorio, Il museo nella storia , Pearson, 2018, pp 76-81

  

 

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ELGIN MARBLES AND THE FUTURE OF THE GREAT MUSEUMS OF POST-COLONIAL COUNTRIES

 

The term for the group of sculptures gathered in Athens by Thomas Bruce, VII Earl of Elgin, Ambassador of England to the Sublime Porte (the office of the Grand Vizier and foreign relations) of the Ottoman Empire in 1799. The term has entered into current archaeological terminology. Assisted by the Neapolitan painter Lusieri and a group of architects, designers and molders, Earl Elgin collected the well-known “Elgin Marbles” such as a capital and a trabeation of a Parthenon column, sculptures of the Parthenon, architectural pieces of the Propylaea, a caryatid, a column, fragments of the Erechtheum, part of the sculptures of the temple of Athena Nike, the statue of Dionysus from the monument of Trasyllos and other architectural fragments of Attic monuments, as well as casts and drawings of the Parthenon sculptures left in place. From 1801 to 1805 Lord Elgin dedicated himself to the collection of these artifacts with a formal authorization from the Turkish government, whose validity is still under discussion today. They were sent to England and temporarily exhibited in the Palace of Lord Elgin from 1807. In 1816 the English Parliament voted a law for their purchase. (1)

Since 1817 the Elgin Marbles are the glory of the British Museum in London. As Salvatore Settis recalled, the marbles were requested “since the dawn of Greek independence, in 1835, and then in 1864 (when England ceded the Ionian Islands to Greece) and in 1924 (centenary of the death of the Philhellenic Lord Byron ). The English also played with fire, flashing the return of the marbles in 1940-41 (as an incentive to the deployment of Greece against Germany and Italy), in the fifties (in exchange for the end of terrorism in Cyprus), and finally during the dictatorship, in exchange for a return to democracy “(2).

The new site of the Acropolis Museum in Athens, designed by Bernard Tschumi, was designed for a worthy presentation of the extraordinary sculptures removed from the temples for conservation reasons. However, the new museum was also created to demonstrate a thesis: through the visual incorporation of the famous hill and its monumental remains, made possible by the glass walls, it is claimed that this is the only appropriate destination for all which come from the site and that here they can also be appreciated in the same light conditions. (3)

To the understandable claim of Greece to the marbles by Fidia, were added those of Egypt for the recovery of works of art removed to foreign museums. These initiatives led the directors of the major museums of the world to sign the “Declaration on the importance and value of universal museums” in 2002 in support of their now historicized structure and of their actions – especially in the case of museums born between the eighteenth century and Nineteenth century – in the dissemination of culture. (4)
A few years later, while the Acropolis Museum in Athens was being set up and opened to the public in June 2009, the British Museum published a splendid collection of its sculptures (5). In its preface the director Neil Mac Gregor argued that in London and in Athens, two ways of presenting the sculptures coexist, both legitimate and for which there is no alternative, given that “the third possibility, that of reintegrating the sculptures in the same building, for reasons of conservation and access is out of the question “(6)

WHY IS THE QUESTION OF ELGIN MARBLES SO IMPORTANT?

The problem, however, is not only about who, between Greece and Britain, has more of a claim on the Marbles, but also, in perspective, the future of the great museums of post-colonial countries. (3a) The question is of great importance. What would happen if the various museums of the world were forced to “return” all their works of art from other places and cultures to their respective countries of origin? The Elgin Marbles are perhaps the most emblematic case of how the integrity of museum collections in post-colonial countries is potentially at risk for the future.

BIBLIOGRAFY:
1) L. Vlad Borrelli “Elgin Marbles” da “Enciclopedia dell’ Arte Antica” (1960) – digital source from
http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/elgin-marbles_%28Enciclopedia-dell%27-Arte-Antica%29/ (Last access: 22 December 2018)

2) Salvatore Settis Nuova luce sul Partenone in “Sole 24 ore. La Domenica”, 30 novembre 2008
3) Maria Vittoria Marini Clarelli, Il Museo nel mondo contemporaneo, Carocci editore, 2014, p. 174
3a) ibid, p. 175
4) Maria Teresa Fiorio, Il Museo nella storia, Pearson 2018, pp. 90-92
5) I. Jenkins, Sculptures of the Parthenon, British Museum Press, London, 2007
6) ibid, p.7

 

 

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THE CATS IN POMPEII

 

It is believed that the cohabitation of cat and man began when the first men made the change from being hunter-gatherers to being farmers and began to accumulate large quantities of food. Cats were then employed in barns as rat hunters. There is certain evidence of peaceful cohabitation between cats and men in Egypt (where they were worshipped) and later also in Greece where, however, this animal never gained the prestige it had in Egypt.

If in the Roman world cats were rare in the first century AD, their remains are also rare. None of their skulls are preserved, in fact, in the storehouse of Pompeii, where skeletal parts of many and various animals abound (most of them are displayed today in the first room of the Boscoreale Museum). Two of them, however, came to light in Oplontis, returned from the excavation of the Imperial Villa. It is no coincidence that the discovery occurred in a building of such great luxury, that is where it was conceivable that exotic and rare animals were hosted. In Pompeii, however, there is no shortage of representations of the feline: of remarkable beauty, for example, is the mosaic coming from the “Casa del Fauno” which represents a “Cat that bites a partridge”, now kept in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. The same museum displays another Pompeian mosaic floor which represents “Parrots, a dove and a cat”, also coming from the “Casa del Fauno”. In any case, it should not be forgotten that Pompeii had many contacts with Greece and Egypt; therefore it is believed credible that the “Pompeian” cats, the few there were, managed to save themselves at the first signs of the catastrophe, something that perhaps did not happen in Oplontis. However, these are just mere speculations.

It is interesting to note that the cat, apart from its beauty and its ability to keep company, from the first century AD progressively replaced the weasel in Roman houses, which until then, had been raised in a semi-domestic state to fight mice (See note).

Many wealthy customers were constantly looking for exotic and strange animals which, with their presence, would certainly have emphasized the prestige of their house: and here – see photo – is a new species of cat with a peculiar maculate livery. This valuable Hellenistic mosaic floor, now kept in the Archaeological Museum of Naples, shows this rare cat, two parrots and a dove at the watering place. For the Western world it is a rare animal: it is the Steppe Cat, rich in various forms, all Asian, set mainly in the Southern plains corresponding to the current Pakistan and neighbouring territories. The progenitor of Indian domestic breeds was widespread in its homeland, and, for centuries before it arrived to Rome, it was imported into Egypt. From the end of the first century AD onwards, during the numerous military campaigns, the Romans took cats with them, contributing to their diffusion throughout Europe. Traces of the presence of the cat have been found in all regions conquered by the Romans. However, all this was never experienced in Pompeii, whose life was suddenly brought to an abrupt end by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79 AD.

Excerpt from: Annamaria Ciarallo, Orti e Giardini di Pompei , Publishing House: Fausto Fiorentino 1992, pp. 30

NOTE: Plutarch gives us this piece of news, cfr. Brehm A.E. 1931. vol. V p. 35

 

 

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THE LOUVRE MUSEUM IN ABU DHABI: MODEL FOR OUR MUSEUMS ?

 

At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, large museum institutions are expanding more and more, not only by enlarging their headquarters but also by opening new branches at home and abroad. The first museum to test this model of development was the Guggenheim Museum which, in addition to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, has opened in Berlin, and it is building, according to a project by Frank Gehry, the Abu Dhabi Guggenheim Museum.
The Tate Modern Museum in London has a satellite, for example, in Liverpool (Tate Liverpool Museum) while the Beaubourg Museum in Paris has inaugurated one in Mets.(1)

But the “most striking” cultural/commercial deal is the one closed by the Louvre Museum in Paris.

In 2007, the French Government and the Federal State of the United Arab Emirates signed an agreement to launch Abu Dhabi as a center of art and culture. The agreement provides for the thirty-year sale of the “Louvre brand”, along with the long-term loan of works of art from the famous Parisian museum and from twelve other French museums, in exchange for generous financial support.

The goal is to bring 8.5 million tourists annually to Abu Dhabi by 2020.
To distinguish itself from the nearby Dubai, which has already become one of the great capitals of world tourism, focusing on entertainment as well as luxury, and from Doha, which has focused on sport (World Cup 2022), Abu Dhabi has chosen the cultural path. The intention is to create a real museum district in Abu Dhabi, such as those in Berlin or Washington, Amsterdam or Vienna, between sea and sand.

Only the grant of the “Louvre” brand for the duration of 30 years seems to be worth 400 million Euros, while another 575 million Euros will be granted in exchange for loans.
The Louvre Museum in Abu Dhabi is a design by Jean Nouvel: a city-museum, an elegant and Pharaonic project. It is the first museum of its kind in the Arab world, a universal exhibition, which focuses on human stories shared through civilizations and cultures.
According to Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, president of The Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority and Tourism Development & Investment Company, the Louvre Museum in Abu Dhabi embodies the belief of the founders of the United Arab Emirates: that nations grow with diversity and acceptance which highlights how the world has always been interconnected.

The highest representatives of French culture have confirmed, in addition to the complete absence of vetoes regarding representations of the deities of every religion and provenance, that the Louvre Museum in Abu Dhabi will be exempt from any prohibition of representation of the nude, in painting or sculpture, sacred or not.
They will display important masterpieces from France, such as the “Portrait of Lady” (La Belle Ferronière) by Leonardo (from the Louvre), “Napoleon Crossing the Alps” by Jacques-Louis David (from Chateau de Malmaison) and the “Self-Portrait” by Vincent Van Gogh (from Orsay).

THE LOUVRE MUSEUM AND THE ABU DHABI DEAL: A MODEL TO BE IMITATED OR AVOIDED?

The birth of the Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum has invariably raised great controversy in France, where many contested the commercialization of such a noble brand. On 12th December 2006 the French newspaper Le Monde published the article “Les musées ne sont pas à vendre” (transl.: Museums are not for sale) by Françoise Cachin, Jean Clair and Roland Recht “where they claimed that” Les œuvres d’art sont a patrimoine à montrer, pas une attraction ni une marchandise ” (transl.: Works of art are heritage to show, not an attraction or a commodity). And they concluded the article stressing that “les objets du patrimoine ne sont pas des biens de consommation, et préserver leur avenir, c’est garantir, pour demain, leur valeur universelle” (transl.: heritage objects are not consumer goods, and preserving their future means guaranteeing, for tomorrow, their universal value).

The Louvre deal is certainly a way to promote its own “brand” and Western art and customs in countries with different cultures – in this case the Arab world. It is also a way to promote Paris abroad, in addition to significant economic speculation.

However, this phenomenon risks triggering the perverse mechanism that induces in the loan policy to privilege the museum/partner which is wealthier than the others, marginalizing all the “serious” but less wealthy museums. Even the museum, a noble cultural institution of our Society, would become a mere business.

But are we really sure that this cultural and commercial deal is not simply a means of “selling one’s soul”?

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Maria Vittoria Marini Clarelli, Il Museo nel mondo contemporaneo, Carocci Editore, 2014, p. 196

 

 

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THE CONCEPT OF RACE IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

 

Ethnicity, as a biological fact, is a product of the nineteenth century that we can not apply to antiquity.(1) In the ancient world, ethnic identity is not particularly important and it is, in any case, a cultural process, always under construction (2). If it is true that from ancient times many populations or social groups tended to shut themselves off from others, excluding or discriminating against those they considered different, their attitude can be defined as “xenophobic” or “ethnocentric” rather than “racist” in the true sense, based on the foundations of presumed linguistic, cultural, and religious superiority. For example, the Greeks and the Romans called people who did not speak their languages “barbarians”. However, this did not favour a feeling of unity within a single race. Among them, the Greeks carried out ruthless wars which often ended with real genocide and with the enslavement of women and children (the so-called “andrapodismos”). (3) During the battle of Traente (A small Calabrian river), in 510 B.C., Crotone, city of “Magna Graecia” (the name given by the Romans to the coastal areas of Southern Italy), even diverted the course of the Crati river to destroy another Greek city, Sybaris.
To better understand how the concept of race was unimportant in ancient times, an interesting story may be that of Tarquinius Priscus. At the end of the VII century B.C., the son of a man from Corinth (Greece) settled in Tarquinia, southern Etruria (the area corresponding to current-day Tuscany, Italy), decided to emigrate to Rome, together with his wife Tanaquil, because the aristocracy of Tarquinia did not allow him to pursue a career. In Rome they called him “Tarquinius” because he came from that city, and they elected him their king after the death of the fourth king of Rome, Ancus Marcius. Who was Tarquinius? He was raised in Tarquinia and “culturally” he was Etruscan. Was he therefore Tarquiniese, as he appeared to the Romans? Was he a Roman, considering the fact that he was king of Rome? Or was he rather, Greek, considering that his “biological” origin was Corinthian? Evidently all and none of these answers can be considered true. A coherent hypothesis would see Lucius Tarquinius Priscus as an exponent of the archaic Mediterranean élite, who used various ethnic backgrounds to express his status. (4)

Even in the Roman world, race was not a particularly important issue. The emperor Hadrian was born near Seville, in the “Hispania Baetica”, and nevertheless he became emperor. Septimius Severus was born in Leptis Magna (Libya) and he managed to become emperor. The Spaniard, Seneca the Younger, born in Cordoba, became a senator of Rome and preceptor to Nero.
In the ancient world – the modern era begins with the discovery of America in 1492 – other categories of identity could have much more of an impact than ethnic identity. Beyond gender (male or female), it was, above all, the social status that determined the identity of a person. (5)
As we said before, the concept of race as a biological fact is a product of the nineteenth century. One of the texts which gave a decisive impulse to the spread of racist ideas was the “Essai sur l’inégalité des races humaines” (1853-55) “The Inequality of Human Races” by J.-A. de Gobineau, who supported the biological and spiritual superiority of the Aryan Germanic race. However, the most tragic expression of racism was in Nazi Germany, which sought to achieve the supremacy of the Aryan race by enslaving the Slavs and eliminating the Jews.

Bibliography:
(1) B. Isaac “The invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity” – Princeton 2004
(2) Gabriel Zuchtriegel “I Greci e le popolazioni indigene dell’Italia antica: un problema antico o moderno?” pag 65 da “Pompei e i Greci” Massimo Osanna e Carlo Rescigno – Electa 2017
(3) ibid. p. 63
(4) ibid. p. 65
(5) ibid. p. 63

 

 

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WHY A NEW BLOG

WHY A NEW BLOG 


Today the web provides a huge amount of information, photos and news of all kinds. This is certainly a very positive development for the dissemination of knowledge: an immense free offer of information immediately available. On the other hand, the risk of running into unreliable news is very high. This is detrimental to any web user, but then it becomes unacceptable when the news pertains to the scientific field.

Hence the desire to share a blog of information on Archeology, in particular and the Sciences in general, analytically verifying each source (bibliographic and non) of the news, reporting it accurately. This is in order to provide “reliable” tools to other scholars who would otherwise have to undertake additional research in the same field.

However, in addition to archaeologists, historians and scholars in general, this blog has the ambition of delivering the news it contains to any enthusiast or “common” reader who loves Archeology.

So, our goal is to include rather than exclude, to approach rather than push away.

Consistent with this principle is the language used in this blog: the English language. The use of the Italian language would have excluded the majority of potential readers of the articles to follow. English is a “democratic” language because it is understood and spoken by everyone.

Therefore, despite the purely scientific nature of this blog, we will try to use a simple and comprehensible language for everyone. Of course, it is not frequent that archaeological and scientific articles can be read easily and with pleasure, but this is our intent. A great archaeologist and historian of ancient art, the Sienese nobleman Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, remembered, amused, that the best review of his book “Roman art at the center of power”, published in the collection directed by André Malraux “L’univers des formes “, had been that of a mediocre opponent, who, thinking of undermining the work, had said that the book by Bianchi Bandinelli was not to be studied, but to be read. (1) Hopefully we will be able to say the same, even if on a different note, about this blog and the diversity of the topics which we will offer below.

Another reason that led us to embark on this adventure is that scientific dissemination in general, and that relating to the classical world in particular, have been and continue to be the glory and pride of the Anglo-Saxon culture. As a great civilization of Dilettanti (amateurs) – as a glorious association of eighteenth-century English archaeologists was called – the Anglo-Saxon world has developed a scientific literature for the delight of the common person, the “commoner” over time. (2) This literary tradition has reached an ever-wider audience.

In Italy, meanwhile, the Academic world has withdrawn on an “Olympus of knowledge”, self-referential and with an indifference to the thirst for knowledge of the “common people”. Academics, scholars, museum directors tend to take as their main – often exclusive – reference, their own scientific community. From popular scientific television programs by the BBC to those by Alberto or Piero Angela, from Roberto Giacobbo to Mario Tozzi, which play that role of “trait d’union”- intermediary –  in that “vacuum” between the scientific world and the “common people”, at the moment too distant.

Fortunately, in recent times, even in our country, we have begun to record encouraging signs from “enlightened” directors of museums, superintendents and academics who have gradually started to turn their gaze towards the “real world”, but the road is still very long and we are only at the beginning.

 

Bibliography

  • Preface by  Mario Torelli in  Tὃlle-Kastenbein,  Archeologia dell’Acqua, Longanesi & C. Milano 2005, p. 1
  • Ibid p.1
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