The protagonist of this third article dedicated to visiting the Pompeii excavations is once again the ordinary, "unknown" tourist. New readers should note that the ordinary, "unknown" tourist, with a capital "T," is one of those who—thousands, hundreds of thousands every year, and for several hundred years—spontaneously visit the Pompeii excavations, coming from all over the world. And without being herded into an "all-inclusive" tour group. This includes the tour guide who expertly navigates the Pompeii universe, which is objectively complicated in itself. This is due to the size of the visit area, the multitude of aspects of daily life it offers, and its very history. Pompeii is the most famous urban archaeological site in the world, partly because it boasts over a quarter of a millennium of its own history. And it still bears the tangible signs of this history, which are decipherable only by the expert eye.
However, as soon as the Tourist enters the ancient city, after having crossed the main arch of the ancient Porta Marina, he glimpses the vast area of the Forum in the background and sees in the foreground some columns on his left meticulously harnessed with circular steel brackets. Each bracket is connected to the other with a metal strip along the "stem" of the column. Other tubes tighten it to the ancient walls behind. It is certainly not a very pretty sight. But it is certainly a static "protection" measure. However, it appears exaggerated compared to the loads and forces in play, including seismic ones. And above all, the sight of the columns harnessed with the ugly external brackets will remain in the eyes of the Tourist and of the other approximately three million tourists who enter Pompei Scavi - or leave it - right there, through the Porta Marina site. And that image will be immortalized in hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions of photos that will circulate on the WEB. The photos will bring back to the tourists' respective homelands - and therefore to the world - the images of an eternally wounded and patched-up Pompeii. In short, with the patches "behind". Despite the Great Pompeii Project and the money that has rained down on Pompeii in the last three years. Furthermore, this multiple exposed metal clamping is a serious violation of the "archaeological and historical landscape" destined to last. How many years will we have to wait for the technically correct restoration - that is, invisible to the common eye - of those columns? Oh God! We don't even dare to think about it! Moreover, the same questionable static protection solution, if it had escaped him, the Tourist finds it in the Forum. In fact, there are two columns in the Temple of Jupiter that have the same decidedly unsightly prostheses. I could even say indecent, because they are proposed on the site of the Great Pompeii Project. The columns seem to be tied in a mafia-style way.
And, mind you, the Temple of Jupiter is perhaps the most accessible and photographed archaeological monument in Pompeii. Will we have to wait for the global restoration of the Porta Marina area and the Temple of Jupiter to remove the prostheses from the columns?
But Cribbio, let's at least do like Mussolini who had his best tanks driven around in all the most important parades for illustrious guests. Let's at least take the heat off the important columns, damn, or rather... damn! My Director of Cronache della Campania will not censor me this time. When it's needed, it's needed! After all, this word - now a simple reinforcer - is now dripping not only on social media but also on all radio and television broadcasts. And then, it was cleared by the mild Cesare Zavattini way back in 1976 on the Radio of the then prudish RAI.
Let us now return to the caprettate columns. A prolonged wait for their definitive restoration will be the grotesque triumph of the short-sighted logic with which the Great Pompeii Project, the GPP for short, was carried forward. Well, in short, great in a manner of speaking…
The GPP was conducted without an overall vision of the specific problems of Pompeii. This would certainly have led to widespread interventions for Insulae or Regions, with an initial phase of static protections, then of remediation, then of restorations, as logic and consolidated practice in the BBCC sector would have recommended for a vast and homogeneous urban area such as Pompeii. We ourselves have repeatedly tried to convey this simple reflection deriving from experience in the field. But without success. The Great Pompeii Project proceeded with proclamations. And certain accredited – or subservient – Press intoned the Paeans of Victory. And so it was preferred to proceed with a sum of specific interventions made to announce and “openings” or re-openings of the Domus or Monuments previously closed, often neglecting the scientific survey phase before starting restorations of the type of that of the House of the Fountain. In that recently restored Domus a beam “slipped out” of its housing. Without damage to people or things. But also luckily. We now leave the Tourist in the Pompeian Forum with his deposits, before he heads off to refresh himself ... at the nearest Autogrill. We will resume the visit to Pompeii with him in the next article.
Federico LI Federico
EDITORIAL TEAM
Choose the social channel you want to subscribe to