The eyes sweep over the Gulf of Naples and therock of Rovigliano, the mythical Petra Herculis,alighting on the roofs of Pompeii and on theprofile of Vesuvius rising up in the background,then moving round all the way to the SarnoValley and the Monti Lattari. In a single glancefrom the Villa Arianna, the surroundinglandscape reveals all the geological and humanhistory that has been built up over countlesscenturies. The Villa Arianna, built on the hill ofVarano from the second century BC and part ofthe archaeological complex of ancient Stabiae,was enlarged with a number of ceremonialrooms. However, it is not possible to say exactlyhow big it was, because large portions nearestsea have collapsed down the cliff. Devastatedby the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, the Villawas discovered and explored during theBourbon period, in the second half of theeighteenth century. It was stripped of its

contents and its most precious frescoes, whichare now in the archaeological museum inNaples, before being reburied and brought backto light only from 1950. With all its troubledhistory, the Villa Arianna takes us back to anancient, luxuriant world that was obliterated bythe eruption, and then through to its discoveryand plunder, to archaeological investigationsand then abandonment, oblivion, and neglect,through to its very recent restoration. A historystratified below ground and brought back tolight by core sampling.

Introduction

The uniqueness of this land is recounted in sto-ries and documents, and in legends handeddown by the locals, guiding the way to theplaces where the core samples were extracted.They are of all kinds, with stories omitted,sometimes concealed, after settling in the subsoil, only to be brought back to the surfaceby means of coring.Once extracted, each individual core will be examined by geologists, who will examine thematerials it is made of and thus identify the various periods in time: a horizontal readingthat transforms the core into a sort of timeline– a spatial materialisation of the passing oftime. This scientific analysis gives concreteform to the possibility of recreating, at somepoint in the future, the chemical compositionof the ground in a particular geographical areaand at a particular time, with traces of the sto-ries it has been through contained in its DNA.Each core sample is shown in a standard con-servation box and is later archived togetherwith all the others in an iron container, whichis sealed and buried underground as a timecapsule. This will be buried in a particularplace on Vesuvius, and marked with a locallava stone bearing the date of the burial anddisinterment, which is planned to take place ina hundred years’ time. The geographic coordi-nates will be sent to the International TimeCapsule Society (ITCS) in Atlanta.The material documenting the entire processof implementing the project will be availableon the website , which also contains a collec-tion of essays that give original interpretationsof the meaning of core boring.

If we plunge into the future envisioned byChris Marker in La Jetée, we find ourselves ina world in which the surface of the Earth is re-duced to a gigantic radioactive wasteland, andhuman beings are forced to live below ground.Here, the victors of the war perform experi-ments on the vanquished. Since they cannotuse space, the scientists in this undergroundworld attempt to exploit the dimension oftime. They use prisoners as guinea pigs thatthey send back into the past in the hope offinding resources they can use to ensure thesurvival of humanity, and to repopulate thesurface of the planet by using the present. Inthis extended, mobile present, the future mayalready have taken place and the past may stillbe taking shape.Digging Up is an attempt to materialise whatin the film we see as a succession of images.It does so by entrusting the journey into thepast to core boring, which by its very natureexemplifies the stratification of time. The coresconstitute the DNA of the places they comefrom and sampling them makes it possible toensure reproducibility in the future. This re-verses the past into a sort of memory of whatis to come, and this is impressed upon the ma-terial extracted from the bowels of the Earth.Shown for the first time in 2012 in Kabul, onthe occasion of dOCUMENTA 13, the projectwas expanded and shown again in Cappadocia in2017. For this new chapter of the Atlas of BlankHistories, the investigation started out from aseries of stories set in Pompeii, both inside andoutside the archaeological site, reaching all theway to Vesuvius, in areas such as Castellammaredi Stabia, Herculaneum, and Torre del Greco,and as far as a Pozzuoli. We are taken from thediscovery in 1936 of an enigmatic magical squareon a column in the Large Palaestra in ancientPompeii, to Lake Avernus, where Virgil set theaccess to Aeneas’ world of the hereafter, andwhich is bound up by spell of the Fata Morgana,through unauthorised buildings and the conceal-ment of the archaeological site in Pollena Trocchia,all the way to the Vesuvius Observatory.

Most of these votive offerings in the sanctuaryconsist of paintings, some of them beautifullymade by master craftsmen known as madonnari.In them we can see some of the characteristic ele-ments used to portray the state of mind and thestories of the patrons. These might include a viewof some terrible episode that happened before amiracle, the representation of a saint, a narrativedescription, and a picture of the worshipper. Atthe bottom we see the Latin initials V.F.G.A.(votum fecit, gratiam accepit – vow made, gracereceived) or the Italian P.R.G. (per grazia rice-vuta – for grace received). Over the years, gold-smiths, silversmiths, decorators, potters, andphotographers were all involved, making theseex-votos a consistent part of the historic and de-votional memory of the people, as well as testi-mony to their artistic and crafts traditions.

A feature of the suburban sanctuary in the FondoIozzino, where rites were held from the mostancient times, is the presence of an enormousnumber of votive offerings. These consist ofminiature objects such as vases, chalices, cups,and saucers dating from the late seventh centuryBC. The arrival of these offerings is recorded in adump of votive materials, which were depositedin the late second century BC in a fenced-inspace, in order to raise the floor level. In thesubsequent architectural redevelopment of thesanctuary, this sedimented layer of votivedeposits formed a sort of connection with theprevious religious activities. The huge quantity ofvotive materials points to an archaic cult, devotedto a divinity we know only by the epithet “apa”,the customs of which included an enigmatic andimpenetrable ritual. The pottery providesevidence of the religious activity of the sanctuary,with its sacrifices, offerings, and libations, whichincluded the use of wine, as revealed by residualorganic traces. The artefacts – vases, jugs, andbowls – bear sgraffito inscriptions in the Etruscanalphabet, and dedicatory formulas with the namesof the offerors, together with scratched symbols,including crosses, stars, asterisks, and small trees.This is the largest collection of Etruscaninscriptions ever found in a single place insouthern Italy, and it sheds light on the veryearliest period of the sanctuary and on thepresence of the Etruscans in the Vesuvius area.These artefacts show that the sanctuary was usedfor this form of worship for a very long time,from the seventh to the first century BC.

Similarly, in one of the most evocative spacesin the monumental sanctuary built in 1800 incontemporary Pompeii, we find a gallery of de-votional ex-votos dedicated to the Blessed Virginof the Rosary. The ex-votos in the premises nextto the basilica are in the form of objects, photo-graphs, texts and painted panels offered to theMadonna of the Rosary in thanks for grace re-ceived. They do not just bear witness to thefaith, for they are also a symbol of the perpet-ual memory of great devotion to the Virgin.

COD 0007 EX FONDO IOZZINO40°44’50.60’’N14°29’49.29’’E

The water in Messigno has the miraculousproperty of making wood placed in it as hard asmarble. The discovery in 1832 of the rock-likewooden tops of three cypress trees planted ver-tically in the ground led the engineer GiuseppeNegri to believe he was facing the remains ofancient Roman boats. Since cypress trees arenot endemic to the area, and cypress wood wasonce used for ships’ masts, Negri came to theconclusion that these tips were the masts ofships that had been sailing in the area, whichformed part of the sea at the time, and that theywere buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD79. At the time of the eruption at Pompeii, thearea of Messigno was near one of the seventributaries of the Sarno, which was famed forits miraculous waters. We know that by theeighteenth century the area had become a la-goon, which the Bourbons decided to reclaim,and indeed the famous Bishop Saint Paulinuslanded in the lagoon by sailing along the Sarno.Negri even convinced himself that this was thevery ship on which Pliny had travelled to res-cue his friend Pomponianus during the erup-tion, and he decided to continue with theexcavation. He therefore wrote to the Ministerof War and the Navy, pointing out that Archae-ology and History stood to benefit greatly fromthis new discovery. It would arouse the wonder,amazement, and envy of all nations, since itwould prove the incorruptibility of wood fos-silised by these mineral waters over the courseof eighteen centuries. For some decades nomore was heard of this story, but in 1858, dur-ing excavation work to channel the river Sarno,a cypress grove of about a hundred trees wasfound in Messigno. The news once again at-tracted the interest of scientists and archaeolo-gists. The regular rows of trunks showed thatthe cypress grove had not grown spontaneously.It was probably planted for its wood, which wasmuch sought after for fixtures and furniture,and it led to the discovery of an ancient countryvilla just next to it. When the reclamation of thearea was complete, it was buried again and itslocation was recorded only in the archives and

in bibliographic sources, until it resurfacedagain in some archaeological essays in 1989.Negri’s hypotheses were discarded, but he isacknowledged as having been the first to attractthe attention of the academic world to a sitethat, over the course of the years, has turned outto be one of the richest in terms of archaeologi-cal finds.

COD 0008 ACQUE DI MESSIGNO40°44’6.20’’N14°30’16.98’’E

A number of signs that are hard to decipher havebeen found inscribed on blocks of tuff onstretches of walls in Pompeii. They includeasterisks, opposing triangles, and short lines thatintersect to form tridents. These are quarry logos,consisting of incomprehensible graphic symbolsthat do not correspond to the letters of anyalphabets known to be used at the time. So, if weare to interpret them, we need to find analternative code in order to build up a separatesemantic system. One possible interpretation ofthese signs that has been put forward associatesthe quarry logos with the stylised shape of thetools used by the various workers. In this case,the symbol would be like a companyadvertisement that, instead of using names,initials, or monograms, summed up the shape ofthe tools in a simple form, instantly recalling theactivities involved in building. Something notthat dissimilar from a modern logo, portrayingthe work tools of stonecutters and masons. Theasterisk seems to refer to the groma, a surveyinginstrument with plumb lines, and the tridentshape to various types of lewis, while the doubleopposed triangle logo would represent a doubleaxe. These signs evoke everyday scenes of ahard-working Pompeii, where construction workwas on the cutting edge: the first known dome inopus caementicium is that of the Stabian Baths,dating from the second decade of the first centuryBC, while opus craticium, – wattlework – anearly example of an anti-seismic constructionsystem, had been commonly used ever since theend of the third century BC. Opus craticium wasa forerunner of the casa baraccata, consisting ofa wooden frame with vertical posts andsupporting beams or horizontal stringers with afilling of opus incertum. In 1784 the Bourbongovernment issued its “Royal Instructions”.These were anti-seismic building regulationsapplicable to all new buildings in southern Italy,and they were directly inspired by theconstruction system that had been used centuriesearlier, in Pompeii.

COD 0009 TORRE DI MERCURIO 40°45’10.63’’N14°28’58.76’’E

The impression left by a woman’s breast hasdisappeared into thin air. The cast was takenfrom a body that was buried during theeruption in AD 79 and unearthed in 1772 in theVilla of Diomedes, where the compact debrismade it possible for the excavators to see theentire figure of the dead woman, her clothesand even her hair. However, the only part theymanaged to extract was the breast, when theyrecovered the impression left by the body in thehardened ash of the pyroclastic flow. This wasthanks to an intuition that was superseded acentury later by the revolutionary method ofplaster casts, developed by Giuseppe Fiorelli.This method gave volume to the bodies,reproducing the poses they were in at themoment they met their death, like theembracing couple who appear in a scene inRoberto Rossellini’s Journey to Italy (1953).

Put on display after its unearthing in the nearbymuseum in Portici, the breast soon became anattraction that fired the imagination of trav-ellers, writers, and artists. The novel ArriaMarcella. Souvenir de Pompéi, written byThéophile Gautier in 1852, focuses on thisfragment of a breast, which fascinates theyoung protagonist Octavien to the point that hegoes to visit the exact place where it wasfound, in the Villa of Arrius Diomedes. A mys-terious spell transports Octavien back in timeand he finds himself in the city before it is de-stroyed by the volcano, and here he meets andfalls in love with Diomedes’ daughter, ArriaMarcella, the girl whose breast it is. The storyends with an exorcism performed by her father,who is incensed at his daughter’s licentious be-haviour. This effectively closes the time portalthat had been opened by Octavien’s amorousobsession with Arria, who goes back to beingjust a cold shape impressed on the ash. Despiteits fame, the cast vanished into thin air, and itsmemory is entrusted purely to the literature itinspired. One possible hypothesis is that a se-ries of invasive tests carried out by inquisitivenineteenth-century scientists ended up damag-

ing and destroying it. One of the last people tosee it was the naturalist Arcangelo Scacchiwho, with a now coldly positivist attitude, andnot without irony, wrote in 1843: “I was shownan irregular impression, which I was told wasthat of a woman’s breast; if they had not toldme, I would certainly not have guessed, but outof courtesy I believed them.”

COD 0010 VILLA DI DIOMEDE40°45’9.38’’N14°28’45.75’’E

Among the ruins of illegally built houses behindthe municipal cemetery, hidden among the shedsof the greenhouses used for growing flowers, andbeyond the railway underpass that leads to thesea along the coastal line of Torre del Greco,stand the remains of the once majestic suburbancomplex of Villa Sora, with its terraces goingdown towards the sea, and its gardens, baths andnymphaea. Villa Sora, in the neighbourhood towhich it gives its name, was a spectacularcomplex. Its frescoes and marble intarsias are sosophisticated that it is considered to have been animperial residence. Dating from between the firstcentury BC and the first century AD, when thecoastline of the Gulf of Naples, with its Graeco-Roman buildings, was an oasis of splendour andluxury, the Villa originally covered a large area,rising up on three levels, of which only theintermediate one can now be visited, for the restwas destroyed by the eruptions of Vesuvius in 79AD and in 1805. The discovery of the ancientremains was made in the seventeenth century,when some truly superb artefacts were found.These included a marble relief with Orpheus,Hermes, and Eurydice, now in the MuseoArcheologico Nazionale di Napoli, and a statueof a Satyr pouring, now in the MuseoArcheologico Regionale Antonio Salinas diPalermo. Finds and expropriations from the sitecontinued during the Bourbon period, andthrough to the nineteenth century, when the Villawas damaged by the construction of the railwayline, which follows the coast and goes through it.The awkward presence of the railway caused nolittle harm, in the form of structural damage,detachments, and lifting of the paint of thefrescoes, due to the proximity of the sea and tothe shockwaves produced by passing trains. By1974, the Gruppo Archeologico was already incharge of the site, and in 1989 came the firstregular excavation. This, however, was notenough to make the complex safe and stop itsdeterioration and neglect, which has continued tothe present day, despite all the measures put inplace. In 2004, Villa Sora was full of garbage, forit was used as an illegal tip, but the following

year it was cleaned up and cleared of weeds, andthe old fence was expanded and replaced toensure greater protection of all the buildings inthe complex. The Villa is in a quite remarkablearea, behind the municipal cemetery, and to reachit one needs to go through private property thathas clearly been the target of illegal building formany decades. As well as the now abandonedhuts, it is surprising to see the number ofgreenhouses used for cultivating carnations,which are some of the most vigorous inCampania, and which are exported throughoutItaly. The flowers grow white, but they are oftenpainted red to satisfy the demand of the markets,and to reach Sanremo, which is home to Italy’smost famous song festival. Despite all the illegalconstructions, its past as a garbage tip, itsposition between the railway and the cemetery,and the difficulty in reaching it along theabandoned road that winds its way through thecarnations and greenhouses, the site is now thefocus of special studies. These accompany a fieldcampaign for the recovery of disjecta membra –scattered fragments – so that Torre del Greco canonce again claim its precious classical past

COD 0011 VILLA SORA40°46’40.59’’N14°22’29.66’’E

SATOR, AREPO, TENET, OPERA, ROTAS:these are the five Latin words that form a MagicSquare, a palindromic enigma of ancient originthat has been an eternal puzzle for archaeologists,epigraphists and scholars of religions,mathematics, and esotericism. What makes thisMagic Square so special is that the words arepalindromic also when read vertically, from topto bottom, or from bottom to top. What is alsosurprising is that when all the letters are takentogether and anagrammed, they form “PaterNoster” twice, in the form of a cross, togetherwith “A” and “O” appearing twice at the tips ofthe cross, representing Alpha and Omega, thebeginning and the end, in the tradition of theApocalypse of John.

A sophisticated play of words, and so compli-cated that its creation has been attributed to di-vine inspiration, and its solution is still a mystery.Some truly bizarre hypotheses have grown uparound the phrase, alongside the Christologicalinterpretation, ranging from a simple puzzle thattranslates from the Latin as “the farmer Arepouses a plough for his work”, to an alchemic for-mula, all the way to the Templars’ password. Alsoits presence in Pompeii, where the engravedstone – currently the oldest known example ofthe Square - was found on a column in the LargePalaestra in 1936, is itself an enigma. The MagicSquare might be an encrypted Christian symbolthat was used as a form of coded message, sinceChristianity was practised in secret at the time bya minority in Pompeii, but on the other hand itmight be linked to the tradition of Dionysianmystery cults, which had the power to take initi-ates into an ultra-terrestrial world. Or it mighteven come from a Mithraic cult, interpreting thewords “pater noster” as a reference to Saturn -Sator - the father of the gods. The many interpre-tations only confirm the abundance of religionsand cultures in ancient Pompeii, where the Chris-tian minority probably lived alongside the paganmajority, but there would also have been a Jewishminority as well as mystery cults imported fromthe East, which spread through the Roman worldby means of esoteric initiation rites.

COD 0012 PALESTRA GRANDE 40°45’0.22’’N14°29’37.75’’E

Mamo Rosar Amru, the last priest of Isis inEgypt, set sail one night and arrived in Pompeiito revive the Isiac mysteries on the Campaniacoast, building a temple dedicated to the god-dess in the second century BC. This, at least, isthe legend told by Giuliano Kremmerz, wholived in the late nineteenth and early twentiethcentury. He was member of a mysterious eso-teric-Masonic cult that viewed the Temple ofIsis in Pompeii as the power behind the move-ment. One of its members was Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who travelled to Italy in 1833 and foundinspiration for his famous novel The Last Daysof Pompeii (1834). But already in the eighteenthcentury, after the discovery in 1764 of the Tem-ple of Isis, the first Egyptian temple that the Eu-ropeans had ever seen, modern Egyptologycame into being and began to spread, givingnew impetus to occultism. Alchemists and eso-tericists took over of the Isiac mysteries andgave them a modern twist, blending them withthe theories and rites of the nascent Masonry.One of these was Raimondo di Sangro, Princeof Sansevero, the founder of the Egyptian-Osirian Order who commissioned the construc-tion of a personal chapel inspired by the Templeof Isis in Pompeii, and another was the leg-endary Count Cagliostro, who made the orderthe basis for his new Masonic Rite of Memphis. The Temple of Isis was visited by writers andartists from all over, and it offered them a richrepertoire of images, motifs and stories that be-came an important iconographic and literarysource for works such as The Magic Flute, com-posed by Mozart in 1791. The temple was next to the so-called TriangularForum, one of the oldest areas of archaic Pom-peii, which was a very different city from that of79 AD, with a patchy urban structure. The mucholder Temple of Athena, on a stretch of the lavabank that gave onto the port on the river Sarno.was located here. The temple and the entire areahad profound meaning, as well as being of reli-gious importance, and they were in a scenic po-sition, visible from a great distance, so theywere important as signalling posts for trade.

The name Triangular Forum comes from theshape of the temple and of the lava bank, whichcould be seen to be triangular both from the landand from the sea. It is believed that, after thecult of Athena came that of Hercules, the leg-endary founder of the city, and that, accordingto some sources, his legendary heroon, or hero’stomb, is located here. It was said that the Greekhero, returning home from one of his labours,founded Herculaneum, and was then honouredby the natives with a sacred procession, orpompa, in the place where the city would laterbe built, recalling in its name the memory ofthat ceremony: “As he was coming throughCampania from Spain, Hercules made a tri-umphal procession (pompa) in a Campaniatown, and this is how Pompeii got its name.”

COD 0013 FORO TRIANGOLARE40°44’55.05’’N14°29’16.84’’E

“You ask me to describe my uncle’s death to you,so you can hand it down to posterity with greaterobjectivity. I am grateful to you, for I am surethat if it is you who celebrate it, his death will bedestined for everlasting glory,” These are theopening words of the letter in which Pliny theYounger tells Tacitus about his uncle’s death dur-ing the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, providingprecious information about the event. His uncle,Pliny the Elder, decided to sail from Misenum tostudy the eruption from up close, driven by hispassion for science, and to rescue some peoplewho were trapped in Stabiae. As he left hishouse, he was handed a letter from Rectina, thewife of Tascius, who lived in a villa by the beachin the threatened area, where people needed shipsto escape by sea. “So he changed his plans, andwhat he had begun in a spirit of inquiry he com-pleted as a hero. He gave orders for thequadriremes to be launched and went on boardhimself to help many more people besidesRectina, for this lovely stretch of coast wasthickly populated [...] By now, ashes were falling,hotter and thicker, as the ships drew near, fol-lowed by lumps of pumice and blackened stones,charred and cracked by the flames: then suddenlythey were in shallow water, and the shore wasblocked by the debris from the mountain. Hebriefly wondered whether to turn back, but whenthe helmsman advised this he refused, tellinghim: ‘Fortune favours the courageous; head forthe home of Pomponianus’”. The letter continueswith an excited account of his uncle’s last hours,until he died: “I believe the air was too full ofash, choking his breathing by blocking his wind-pipe, which was constitutionally weak and nar-row, and often inflamed. When daylight returnedthe next day [the third day after he had last seenhim], his body was found intact and uninjured,still wearing the same clothes: he looked morelike a man asleep than dead.”

COD 0014 VILLA SAN MARCO40°42’10.80’’N14°29’55.48’’E

When the waters at the base of the SuburbanBaths were drained, a skeleton came to light. Itwas 1980 and that skeleton was just the first ofmany human remains to be found, turning on itshead the comforting idea that almost all thepeople of Herculaneum had survived theeruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. The beach andthe arches that held up the terrace of the bathsand of the sacred area, which were used formaintaining and sheltering boats, turned out tobe a cemetery of skeletons: over 250 were foundalong less than a hundred metres of seashore.The original conformation of the site wasobliterated by the thick blanket of pyroclasticmaterial, which pushed the coastline somehundreds of metres further out. In a desperateattempt to save themselves, the inhabitants ofHerculaneum packed into the arcades that gaveonto the sea, and it was here that the greatestnumber of victims were found. The contractionof the limbs shows that the bodies weresubjected to high temperatures, and their openmouths that they were gasping for breath, withtheir windpipes blocked. Unlike the victims inPompeii, who were buried by layers of ash thatthen hardened, the dozens of metres of ash thatcovered those trying to flee Herculaneumremained moist, gradually enveloping the bodiesas the soft tissues decomposed, preserving thebones. Considering that the Romans used tocremate their dead, these skeletons are anexceptional discovery for biologicalanthropology, offering a virtual census of thepopulation at the time. On 3 August 1982, during excavation of theancient marina, a charred wooden boat, placedupside down, was unearthed a few metres fromthe Suburban Baths. Near the keel was theskeleton of a man, probably a soldier, aged 37and about 1.8 metres tall, wearing a belt fromwhich hung a dagger and a gladius. A bag withtwelve silver and two gold coins was foundnearby. He had lost a number of teeth, probablyin a fight – maybe the one in which he had beenstruck by a pointed weapon that had cut into hisleft femur. The regular development of his bones

showed that his nutrition had been good and thehead of his femur appeared worn down, as foundin people who spend a long time riding. Thecarpentry tools found next to the skeleton – abag containing a hammer and two chisels forwood – probably show how, in peacetime, thesoldiers were used for construction work. He hadprobably just got off the boat, possibly a lifeboat,in a bid to rescue the many Herculaneans whohad raced down to the beach. Here we see notjust the lifestyle and customs of the time, butalso the final hours of Herculaneum, with thefeverish stampede of a panic-stricken population.

COD 0015 SCAVI DI ERCOLANO40°48’18.21’’N14°20’47.86’’E

A short, deformed little boy, wearing a hood anda monk’s habit, with silver buckles on his shoes:this is Monaciello, a spirit that appears in differ-ent forms, leaving coins in people’s homes whenhe likes them, and telling jokes that turn intonumbers to play on the Lotto. He will hide andbreak objects or blow into the ears of peoplesleeping, simply out of spite. In her Leggendenapoletane (1881), Matilde Serao says that this“munaciello” was actually a real person. It wasin 1445, when Naples was under Aragoneserule. Two lovers had to keep their relationshipsecret because of the difference in their socialclass: she, Caterina Frezza, was the daughter ofa rich merchant, while he, Stefano Mariconda,was a lowly servant. Every night, Caterinawould wait for her beloved but one evening Ste-fano never turned up. On his way, he had beenattacked and killed. The young woman was sodistressed that she decided to withdraw to a con-vent where, nine months later, she gave birth toa sickly little baby, who remained that way as hegrew up, humiliated by others. His motherprayed for him every night and allowed him toleave their home wearing a monk’s habit tobring him good luck. The little monk thus usedto walk the streets of Naples and, upon the deathof his mother, no more was heard of him. This isone of countless stories about the origins ofMonaciello, the spirit that lives mainly amongthe deconsecrated churches and the small coun-try vicarages at the foot of Vesuvius. One ofthese is the church of the Madonna dell’Arco inPompeii, which for years was feared as it wasconsidered to be haunted by the spirit. Thechurch was founded by Nicola De Rinaldo, as amarble epigraph recalls, and for a long time ru-mours swirled about malignant presences insidethe little building, precisely because of the age-ing nobleman’s passion for spiritism. The build-ing was one of the first religious complexes inthe city and a custodian of its historical and ar-chaeological past even before it was built, be-cause it was here that the first discoveries of theancient city were made. After the eruption of 79AD the name Pompeii was no longer applied to

a precise geographical location and, as from theMiddle Ages, the place where the ancient citywas buried began to be known as Civita Giu-liana. It is here that the church stands, but noone knew that it marked the spot where the citywas buried. Pagan religions and Christianity,spiritism and legends all weave together andsurvive in modern Pompeii.

COD 0016 CIVITA GIULIANA40°45’34.32’’N14°29’1.14’’E

During the Second World War, Vesuvius wastargeted in a number of aerial bombardments.The Royal Air Force carried out many raids onthe volcano, and its slopes became like a mine-field, with large quantities of unexploded ord-nance, while the bombs that did go off made itlook like the surface of the moon. The VesuviusObservatory, which was set up in 1841 to studythe unpredictable activity of the volcano, was afront-row witness to the effects of the war. Thenecessary instruments and knowledge werelacking, but they were gradually acquired bystudying the behaviour of the volcano, and seis-mographs – which were initially made almostby hand – became increasingly sensitive, untilthe world’s first electromagnetic seismographwas installed in 1863. As well as scientific in-struments, the Observatory also has a collectionof lava medals, which were first made in thenineteenth century, using magma that floweddirectly from Vesuvius. The subjects they por-tray include mythological scenes and portraitsof important personalities, ranging fromNapoleon to Mussolini. The collection wasdamaged during the war. In the Second World War, the Observatoryrecorded one of the most intense volcanic activ-ities just as Italy entered the conflict, and it wasaccompanied by rumblings of Vesuvius in June1940, while bombing raids were repeatedly car-ried out in the area from 1943. Bomber pilots atthe time targeted the cone of Vesuvius. Para-doxically, a similar “experiment” had been at-tempted in 1922 by the volcanologists of theObservatory, in order to blow up the magmacolumn that was about to emerge. On theevening of 1 November 1944 a very strongwind was lashing at the terrace of the Observa-tory, making it impossible to the scholars tostay. After a few minutes of the usual whistlesand explosions of bombs falling behind thebuilding, an anomalous blast was felt. There arethose who say that the cone was damaged,causing the lava to flow, but other scholars be-lieve the hypothesis is not credible because theseismic recordings of the event are missing.

Even though the link between the bombingraids and the activity of the volcano has neverbeen proved, the targeting still made an inter-esting contribution, in scientific rather than mil-itary terms: examining the seismographicrecordings and comparing the times with thoseof the most violent explosions, it was possibleto calculate the propagation velocity of the rela-tive earthquakes caused, obtaining a sort ofdeep X-ray of the volcano. The final count was162 bombs dropped on Vesuvius, and the dataobtained led to an initial, well-founded hypoth-esis concerning the internal and undergroundconformation of the volcano.

COD 0017 OSSERVATORIO VESUVIANO 40°49’39.48” N14°23’50.71”E

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OPENING 25.10.201812.00

25.10.2018 18.11.2018

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