POMPEI

Thanks to excavations in Pompeii halfway through the 18th century there was a decisive turn in the knowledge of the Roman period in Italy. Excavations at Vesuvius brought to light an entire, ancient city with all its treasures and everyday objects. Up to then knowledge of classical antiquities was almost always thanks to Rome but the image that Pompeii, completely buried from 24 th August 79 B.C., could give us was surely more complete and determinant that that supplied for Rome for in all the years of development it had conserved only the more relevant things.
The city of Pompeii was built on a hill formed by a lava flow. To the north stood Vesuvius, then characterized by a gentle slope, an ideal place for growing grapes. To the south, however, flowed the river Sarno, giving the opportunity to the inhabitants of the area to undertake the fruitful activity of commercial traffic with the other cities in Campania.
Occupation of Pompeii began in the 6 th century B.C. and a wall around the city was built immediately in pappamonte (soft lava), not as a system of defence because of the characteristics of the material but rather as a boundary to the city's territory.
It is important to remember than in this period two important sanctuaries were constructed, the Sanctuary to Apollo to the west and the Sanctuary to Hercules and Minerva to the south-west. There are some doubts as to who the inhabitants of Pompeii were at that time but the more accredited hypotheses claim it to be the Greeks, the Etruscan and the Italici.
Substitution of the soft lava wall with proper walls took place between 525 and 474 B.C. due to the war between the Greeks and the Etruscans to gain supremacy of Campania.
The new walls had a double row of square stone blocks from Sarno and encircled the same area as the previous ones.
These walls were again replaced and reinforced according to the degree of protection the city needed. In that period there were many different battles in Campania such as that between the Samnites and the Romans and the Second Punic War that saw the decline of Hannibal in the south of Italy.
At this point the walls assumed their final form - a double row with ager inside and vallum outside. However, the city remained allied to Rome and, in this period, thanks to commerce with other cities, Pompeii grew rich and began to use its income to beautify the city. The Civil Forum, the Triangular Forum , the Great Theatre and the Quariportico were all built during this period.
This favourable situation lasted until about 89-80 B.C. when Pompeii decided to side with the Soci Italici against Rome for the right to be “Roman citizens” and to prepare itself for war, the walls were reinforced by thirteen towers.
The city was taken by Silla but, fortunately, the colonies decided to continue the program of Hellenism, at that time ripe in Pompeii, by constructing the Temple of Venus, the Odeum, the Forum Thermal Baths and the Amphitheatre.
In 62 B.C. Pompeii, together with other cities around Vesuvius, was hit by an extremely violent earthquake, followed by numerous earth tremors that destroyed many buildings.
The inhabitants of Pompeii immediately began to rebuild despite the social unrest that characterised this period in time but the work was brutally interrupted on the 24 th August 79 A.D. when Pompeii was invested and completely covered by Vesuvius's devastating eruption.
The worst centres to be hit were Pompeii and Herculaneum and the land of the Sarno valley, all of which were covered by an enormous, white blanket.
Pompeii was covered by a layer about six metres thick and, despite being forbidden to pass through the city, an operation that was deemed necessary to defend the property of the survivors, it was ransacked by means of secret tunnels over the years.
Excavations in Pompeii began in 1748 and are still going on today.
Work at the beginning was obviously directed by many different people and was badly conducted. The buildings uncovered were indeed stripped of their best paintings and given to the King if they were considered worthy of his private collection.
Devastation by King Charles III was stopped thanks to the denunciation by many scholars and above all by J.Winckelmann. Indeed, in 1765, under the direction of F. La Vega, it was established that each building uncovered should be preserved intact in loco and the objects put on show in the Royal Museum. During the French rule of Naples, Caroline Bonaparte, the wife of the King of Naples, took an avid interest in Pompeii and programmed excavation of the entire city wall in order to discover the city gates and, therefore, the most important roads in order to obtain a certain continuity in the work.
The plan was too extensive and in 1815, when the Borbone family returned to power, the project had only in part been carried out. From 1815 to 1863 during the Borbone period, work was extremely slow. In 1863 the direction passed into the capable hands of G. Fiorelli. He decided to apply a new methodology to the excavation. Up till then it was the streets that were uncovered first and these led to the houses. Fiorelli decided to dig from the top so as to simplify and make the work of revealing all the elements of the buildings more precise. He also managed to uncover a topographic system that divided the quarters into Regiones, Insulae and houses and restored the bodies of the victims and all the organic elements alive at the time of the eruption thanks to the use of chalk impressions. Indeed these organisms left a vacuum in the volcanic ash after their decomposition.
Those who followed Fiorelli continued to use his methods of excavation and also made sure that the paintings and mosaics stayed in their original places. From 1924-1961, under the direction of Maiuri, one of the most determined scholars in the history of the excavation of Pompeii, the town-walls were freed. He also began a programme of stratographic research that uncovered the more ancient history of the city.
The directors who followed Maiuri continued the work of restoration in Pompeii but of the sixty-six hectares that made up the city, only forty-four have been uncovered so far.
An analysis of the constructive techniques in use in Pompeii shows that the more common building materials were: Sarno stone, lava from Vesuvius, lava foam, grey tuff, yellow tuff, bricks and travertine. The techniques used were: l'opus quadratum, l'opus africanum, l'opus incertum, l'opus reticolatum, l'opus latericium, l'opus vittatum, and l'opus vittatum mixtum.
There were four decorative systems in use in Pompeii and were called “styles” This categorization was made possible thanks to A. Mau who, in 1882, wrote the “History of the wall decorations in Pompeii”. The oldest is the “ 1 st Style ”, known as “incrustation” or “structural”. It was used from 200 to 80 B.C. and imitated architectonical elements such as frames, pilaster strips and ashlars by using stucco and obtaining an effect similar to marble through these decorations. These prerogatives were never abandoned not even with the event of new styles.
The Silla era from 80 to 25 B.C. was characterized by the 2 nd style , known as “architectonic”, with the use of the decorative elements in the 1 st style but with the use of painting instead of stucco.
The decoration generally consisted of a high podium on which stood four columns and often there were paintings with naturalistic scenes and various figures ( a brilliant example of this type of decoration may be found in the Villa of Mysteries ).
The 3 rd style or “ornamental”, in fashion from 25 to 35 A.D. showed only a review of the previous one. The columns were thinner, resembling carved ivory columns, the decorations being miniatures, the colours being bright and the background generally white or black.
The 4 th style or “fantastic” was mainly used after the earthquake in 62 A.D. and diverse elements from the 2 nd style were noted with a marked architectonic fantasy and some from the 3 rd style with an accentuated decorative tone. For these characteristics, the last style gives the architecture an unreal aspect.
In this period another type of decoration that included both painting and stucco relief was evident.
Of interest is also the so-called “popular” painting, whose main characteristic is that of representing scenes of the everyday life of the poorer people of Pompeii.
Not many mosaics have been found at Pompeii and those present are mainly floor decorations. These were composed of small stones, glass paste and, above all, marble. The different types of mosaic were: l'opus tesselatum , with their geometrical design, l'opus vermiculatium with its pictorial scenes called “emblems” and l'opus sectile, made up of polychrome marble enclosed in a square or circle, also portrayed with emblems.