The residence of the Pisoni family known as the Villa of the Papyri
The residence of the Pisoni family, also known as the Villa of the Papyri of the Herculaneum excavations, near Naples, which until that moment had remained buried under ash and mud since that distant August of 79 AD, thus became “the greatest discovery of the century.” Finally, a moment of glory for the small Herculaneum, but also a moment of glory for the Swiss archaeologist Carlo Weber, who in the distant 1750 directed the excavation works commissioned by the Bourbons and drew the detailed map of the ancient city of Herculaneum. Including, of course, the residence of the Pisoni family.
Today a small part of the Villa has been restored and opened to everyone. Although with some limitations. It will be possible to access the site only on weekends, and in guided groups of 25 people, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. Until today, the excavation has covered an area of fourteen thousand square meters, of which 1500 contain monumental works. But there is still much to do, because the Villa, which has a surface comparable to that of three football fields, extends entirely beneath the current inhabited center, at about thirty meters deep.
The excavations commissioned by the Superintendent of Pompeii also uncovered a grand sacred shrine, five meters wide and twenty meters long, with an apse facing the sea and a vaulted roof, built on a promontory. This discovery allows to redraw the coastline of the ancient city because it extends its coastal boundary beyond the line traced by 18th-century archaeologists. This reintroduces the hypothesis timidly assumed until now: the western area of Herculaneum had terraces facing the sea, and sophisticated access ramps led, overcoming a height difference of 10 – 15 meters, to the verandas and viewpoints of the luxurious villas that 1922 years ago overlooked the blue sea of Naples.
Villa dei Papiri: the most famous archaeological site in the world
But what is so extraordinary about the Villa dei Papiri, to become the most famous archaeological site in the world?
Beneath the layer of lava that preserved its structure, since 1752 archaeologists have recovered about 2000 papyrus scrolls that could reveal still unknown aspects of ancient Roman history. Since 1996, archaeologists of the ERPO ‘90 consortium in collaboration with technicians from Infratecna have reached the “heart” of what was the “summer” residence of Julius Caesar’s father-in-law, Lucius Calpurnius Piso. Scholars hope to find other very precious papyrus scrolls to add to the 1826 already recovered and kept in the National Library of Naples. A true showcase of Greek philosophy, from Epicurus to Philodemus of Gadara.
The great Hellenist and papyrus scholar Marcello Gigante, who passed away a few years ago, was convinced that Latin texts could also be found on papyrus “because,” he argued, “at that time many Latin libraries were bilingual, and Herculaneum belonged to Latin civilization.” Scholars hope that among the papyri from Villa Pisone may also be the last existing copy of Ennius’ “History of Rome,” a work of which only a third is known, and whose discovery could lead to the rewriting of the entire history of Rome.
It was possible to recover the papyri because the carbonization of the documents did not occur due to the heat of the lava, but through a process of mineralization favored by the material that submerged Herculaneum in 79 AD. Unlike Pompeii, a city founded by Hercules was buried by a river of lava and mud that penetrated all the houses, solidifying and sealing everything. Thanks to the nature of this material, the precious documents have reached us intact. It is said that when between 1762 and 1764 the German art historian Johann Joaquim Winckelmann saw the papyri, he said they looked like pieces of coal, and the room where a large quantity was found was named the “coal room”.
