L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 8 THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2021 L'Italo-Americano T w e n t y - f o u r hours: that's how l o n g i t t o o k t o M o u n t V e s u - vius to obliterate Pompeii, Herculaneum, S t a b i a e , a n d O p l o n t i s from the face of the Earth. Twenty-four hours and two devastating phases: the first b u r i e d P o m p e i i u n d e r meters of ashes; the second, s o m e t w e l v e h o u r s l a t e r , destroyed Herculaneum and other villages northwest to the volcano. It is through stratigraphy, the science studying how the soil stratifies, that we discov- ered it: truly, what would history be without science? A n d i t ' s s c i e n c e a g a i n - although a different variety of it, archaeology - that we found out, after centuries, that the end of Pompeii did not come in August, but this very month, on the 24th of October, 79 AD. Back then, the area hit by the tragedy was densely pop- ulated, with Pompeii count- ing some 20.000 citizens and Herculaneum around 5.000. 2.000 of them died, in a catastrophe so far from us in time, but incredibly vivid and clear in our minds. There are many reasons this is the case. It's known that Man is naturally inter- ested in disastrous, or dan- gerous events because learn- ing about them is almost a w a y t o e x o r c i s e t h e m , t o k e e p t h e m a t b a y . T h e n , there is the fascination many of us have with Antiquity and with imperial Rome in particular: whether you con- sider them ancestors - as many in Italy do - fathers of civilization, without forget- ting the Greeks, or mythical citizens of a mythical city, the Romans, their culture and their aesthetics found quite a relevant place in the life of many people of today. Then, there are the grief and anguish, and the way we, today, can still see them. The tragedy of Pompeii is incredibly alive and incredi- bly raw, even after 2.000 years, because its victims are here, with us, and we can still see their faces: I ' m j u s t b a c k f r o m Pompeii, my soul filled with sorrow because of what I've seen. Looking at those (...) deformed figures without b e i n g m o v e d t o t e a r s i s impossible. They've been dead for 18 centuries, yet, they still are human beings, and we can see them ago- nizing. It's not art, it's not imitation. It's their bones, their flesh, and their clothes mixed with plaster we see, it's the pain of death, taking s h a p e a n d f o r m . W e unearthed temples, homes, a n d o t h e r o b j e c t s , a l l o f great interest to intellectu- als, artists, and archaeolo- gists. But now you, my dear F i o r e l l i … y o u u n e a r t h e d h u m a n p a i n , a n d e v e r y human being can feel and understand that. The heartfelt words Luigi Settembrini, Italian man of letter and patriot, wrote in 1863 vividly describe a feel- ing, I am sure, we all some- h o w e x p e r i e n c e d w h e n standing in front of the vic- tims of Pompeii: silent, fixed in time, yet speaking loudly, in their plasticity and tragic, sculptural movement, about the very second in which t h e y l e f t t h i s w o r l d . Pompeii's casts are more than archaeology and histo- ry, they are life and death, they are love, friendship, and daily events: when looking at them, we see ourselves, in our routines and normality. This is why we all fell close to them. U n d o u b t e d l y , t h e w a y they came to us, the fact we can still discern their faces, e x p r e s s i o n s , a n d m o v e - ments, makes it easier to connect, and this is possible thanks to the ingenuity and work of Giuseppe Fiorelli, archeologist and coin expert from Naples. If we want to understand how and why he was able to create these famous plaster c a s t s o f t h e p e o p l e o f Pompeii, we need to step back in time, all the way to that faithful night of 79 AD. As we know, Pompeii was then entirely buried under thick layers of lapilli, pumice, and ashes, which caused the c o l l a p s i n g o f r o o f s a n d h o m e s , a n d t h e d e a t h o f hundreds and hundreds of its people and animals. With the passing of time, these materials compacted around bodies, encasing them as if in concrete; but nature took its course, as she always does, and decomposition reduced people and animals to bone, l e a v i n g b e h i n d , h o w e v e r , hollow "body prints" into the compacted ashes. At the beginning of the 19th century, archaeologists u n d e r s t o o d w h a t t h e s e "empty spaces" were, realiz- ing their importance: bodies disappeared, but their shad- ow was there, imprinted in a s h e s i n t r i d i m e n s i o n a l details. In 1823, the director of Pompeii's main excava- t i o n , A n t o n i o B o n u c c i , revealed that the shape of a door was impressed in the ashes, but it was only in 1856 that the idea of making a cast of it pouring plaster of Paris into the hollow form was applied. A handful of years later, in 1 8 6 3 F i o r e l l i , w h o h a d b e c o m e d i r e c t o r o f t h e Pompeii site, decided to use t h e s a m e t e c h n i q u e f o r h u m a n r e m a i n s , a n d i t w o r k e d . T h a n k s t o t h i s extraordinary method, a full, incredibly detailed cast of the person - or animal, or object - could reveal their last moments of life; it was an immense archaeological discovery because it helped understand more about the way the ancient people of Pompeii lived, about the way they dressed, what they kept with them while desperately fleeing their homes. F i o r e l l i ' s f i r s t a t t e m p t brought back to life four peo- ple: a man, a woman lying on her side, a young girl and a w o m a n w i t h a s w o l l e n belly, and an arm covering her face. In the very first years, Fiorelli's casts includ- ed also the bones and teeth of the victims, or pieces of their clothing and personal objects; today, on the other h a n d , b o n e s a r e u s u a l l y removed before plaster is used. Since then, more than 100 casts have been made, bring- i n g b a c k t o l i g h t a n d l i f e more than 100 people who w a l k e d t h e s t r e e t s o f Pompeii two millennia ago. Fiorelli's technique is very much in use today. At the end of 2020, two victims were identified in the thick- ened ashes of the Roman v i l l a a t C i v i t a G i u l i a n a , where "empty space" and bones were found. The casts of two men were made: a younger one, aged between 18 and 25, and a second, of about 30. They were proba- bly a slave and his master, killed by the second part of the deadly eruption, on the m o r n i n g o f t h e 2 5 t h o f October 79 AD. They were trying, after a night of hor- ror, to escape what was once their home in Pompeii. One of the victims of the eruption: these casts began being made in the late 19th century (Photo: Kilmermedia/Dreamstime) LIFE PEOPLE PLACES HERITAGE Giving a face to Pompeii's last citizens LUCA SIGNORINI

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