Digitized Pompeian photos at Strasbourg University

A site with ancient pictures of Pompeii casually encountered.
The University of Strasbourg bought the collection of pictures gathered by Adolf Michaelis (1835-1910, first director of the Institute of Classical Archaeology [Kunstarchäologisches Institut]) when he died.

Among many others, some 117 pictures of Pompeii have been recently digitized.

More general info there (in French).
Contact for use: scd-bibnum [at] unistra.fr

More Warscher Codex

Thanks to those of you who replied to Sera's query about the Warscher Codex! Anne Laidlaw also emailed me a detailed reply which I copy here along with documents she provided (you have to click on the images to make them bigger):

For copies of Tatiana Warscher, you should try the Duke University Library, which, under the auspices of Prof. Lawrence Richardson jr, has the "complete" set that Mrs. Warscher made for Prof. Rostovzeff and, when he died, for Prof. Bradford Welles for Yale University.  In the 1950s they were kept in the Yale Classics Dept.., but after the Diaspora of Yale Classics faculty in the early 1960s, the Warscher Codices went with Prof. Richardson to Duke on permanent loan, where to the best of my knowledge they still are.  In Dobbins and Foss (Routledge 2007), in my article on "Mining the early published sources," n. 10 re p. 622 I mention their history.  What I omitted was my survey of where the various versions are (as of 1980).  I published the locations with which volumes had which houses in Laidlaw, The First Style in Pompeii (Giorgio Bretschneider 1985) pp. 10-11, and am attaching PDF copies of that list here.  There are also a few copies I stumbled across in the archaeological library of the Univ. of Cincinatti, and there may well be others floating about, since every copy is a unique paste-up job with variants: the Yale copy of the C. del Fauno, for instance (now at Duke) is dated 1949, while the only other version that I could find is in the Swedish Institute in Rome, dated 1946. 

The other place to look would be at the Getty Research Institute in the Halsted B. Vander Poel Campanian Collection, Accession no. 2002.M.16, kept in over 200 boxes in the Special Collections.  That is a morass to search through though you can try online (start with Getty Institute Research Library).  Vander Poel supported Mrs. Warscher the last few years of her life, and became her student (he was a wealthy amateur living in Rome in the 1950s-90s).  Since he had no training in research or ancient studies, but DID have a lot of enthusiasm and also the money to support it, he hired various young scholars -- the most important was probably Laurentino Garcia y Garcia, much of whose research is in that collection anonymously -- and gave them research projects (probably originally suggested to him earlier by Mrs. Warscher), many of which eventually came out as parts of Van der Poel's CTP (Corpus Topographicum Pompeianum), which was privately published but given both to major Classical Research Libraries in the US and Rome and also to scholars he knew who were working in Pompeii at that time.

Anne Laidlaw

Fellow-by-Courtesy, Johns Hopkins University

Inauguration of the Historical Archive of the Comune of Pompeii

Not quite sure what will be in this new archive, does anyone know? Looks like it might be interesting.

Diana Kleiner lectures on-line

I've just come across a whole series of lectures on Roman architecture on academicearth.org, given earlier this year by Diana Kleiner of Yale. There are 23 lectures in total on a wide range of topics and sites and they include:
Habitats at Herculaneum and Early Roman Interior Decoration
Civic, Commercial and Religious Buildings of Pompeii
Houses and Villas at Pompeii
Exploring Special Subjects on Pompeian Walls
This looks like a fantastic resource.

Le opere di Giovanni Battista Piranesi

I have just discovered Le opera di Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Franceso Piranesi e d'altri on-line, on a site copyrighted to the University of Tokyo and Massanori Aoyagi. There are volumes dedicated to Rome and surrounding sites, and to drawings of ancient objects, but also one to the theatre of Herculaneum (1783) and three to Magna Graecia (i.e. Pompeii! Vols 27, 28 and 29; mostly the area around the Herculaneum Gate, and the Theatre district and Temple of Isis) (1804). Fantastic stuff!

Archaeology Image Bank

I've just come across the website of the "Archaeology Image Bank" which describes itself as follows:

This resource is intended as a tool for locating and sharing archaeological images for use in teaching, studying and research. There is no charge for using the Image Bank but you will be asked to read and accept the terms and conditions of use before viewing any images. We also encourage you to donate your own archaeological images using the donation section of this interface.

This is another great initiative for sharing information, but will presumably only work if everyone contributes. I did a quick check and so far there are no images from Pompeii or any of the Vesuvian sites - but if you all donated your best images it would be a really useful resource.
What do you all think?

Electronic resource: "Observations on the Volcanoes of the Two Sicilies"

I've just come across some more interesting digital books on Vesuvius, this time "Campi Phlegraei, Observations on the Volcanoes of the Two Sicilies". The following description is taken from the Claremont Libraries Digital Collections website:

Campi Phlegraei is a firsthand report which documents the late eighteenth century eruptions of Mount Vesuvius. Written by Sir William Hamilton, the British envoy to the Neapolitan royal court in 1764, the work is named for the area around Naples known locally as the Campi Phlegraei or "flaming fields." This name refers to the frequent and violent eruptions of Mount Vesuvius. The area was a popular destination for wealthy travelers undertaking the Grand Tour because of the long history of volcanic activity as well as the classical sites, Pompeii and Herculaneum, which were excavated in 1748 and 1738 respectively.

Hamilton was able to observe the volcano from his arrival in Naples on November 17, 1764, through the eruptions which lasted until October 20, 1767. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society and wrote a series of letters describing the activity of the volcano. The letters were to be read aloud at the Society's meeting and published in its Transactions. The letters make up the text of the Campi Phlegraei. Hamilton engaged the Anglo-Neapolitan artist Peter Fabris to create sketches in situ to illustrate the work. The sketches were reproduced in prints that were hand colored individually by local artists.

Hamilton applied focused attention resulting in a work which is important to the science of volcanology due to the precise descriptions of the changes in the appearance of the volcano, the lava flows and other volcanic activity. The illustrations document the Naples area of the 1700s, aspects of life in Italy of the era, and most importantly, the geological conditions of Mt. Vesuvius and the surrounding terrain.

Volume one of the Campi Phlegraei is predominately text with a single plate and a map. Volume two is predominantly plates with textual descriptions. The third book is a supplement to the original two volume work. The supplement was published in 1779 and describes the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in August 1779. The supplement is composed of letters written to The Royal Society of London and five hand-colored plates illustrating the volcanic activity.

Resources: Fondo Amedeo Maiuri

I have been attempting to find out something (anything!) about the ‘Fondo Amedeo Maiuri’, having heard about it at the Herculaneum conference here in Rome the other week. It doesn’t have a website – but I have been able to find out a few things.

Maiuri’s personal archive was acquired from his daughter, Bianca, in 2001 by the Università Suor Orsola Benincasa di Napoli. Today it is housed in the ‘Centro Internazionale per gli Studi Pompeiani’. This is in Scafati, at the Villa Nunziante a Scafati (once known as the Caserma del Polverificio Borbonico). It consists of c. 1200 photos of different format of all the sites that Maiuri was involved with (i.e. Pompeii, Herculaneum, Beneventum, Campi Flegrei and so on). Those of Pompeii date to the 1950s and 60s. Then there is his library of over 3000 books, and a file of letters sent to Maiuri from 23 different correspondents (I have no idea who at present), in addition to conference invitations and the like for the entire period 1911 to 1961, his bibliographical notes, and two manuscripts about Herculaneum. The archive also includes honours awarded to him – medals, diplomas, honorary citizenships! There must be other things too.
I would like to know if any of you have been to the Centro Internazionale, and seen (or worked with) Maiuri’s archive. The Centro website describes the facilities for students of Suor Orsola, but doesn’t mention anything about opening its doors to outsiders. There’s not even a telephone number. Does anyone know anything about this???

Resources: Archive.org

Following Jeremy’s post the other day I’m sure I’m not the only one who has been checking out Archive.org (thank you, Jeremy!), and I just want to say how fantastic I think it is. Not just for the Notizie degli Scavi, which will be incredibly useful, but for all the other documents and books that have been put on-line. Here are just a few of the books that you can now read on-line:
Venuti’s Description of the first discoveries of the ancient city of Herculaneum (1750) and Bellicard’s Observations upon the antiquities of the ancient town of Herculaneum (1754);
the letters of Cochin (1751) and Winckelmann (1764) about the earliest excavations;
Hamilton’s Account of the discoveries at Pompeii (1777);
Jorio’s Real Museo Borbonico (1825);
Gell’s Pompeiana (1852);
William Henry Davenport’s Cities of Campania (1872);
Fiorelli’s Descrizione di Pompei (1875);
Mau’s Pompeii. Its Life and Art (1899);
Charles Waldstein’s Herculaneum (1908).

And lots, lots more. In some respects it’s quite a random collection. There is even a podcast of a group of Cardiff-based Dr Who fans discussing the ‘Fires of Pompeii’ episode (which, by the way, has just been nominated for a BAFTA TV Craft award!). But it is fantastic that so many of these publications that up until now we’ve only be able to read in large research libraries are now available on-line. The collection is going to make my (research!) life so much easier when I get back to Swansea in the summer. I am all for digitizing books! (And another aside: the University of Michigan Press has just announced that from now on the majority of its publications will be in digital format).

Eruption of Vesuvius in 1944

Just found this on the BBC WW2 Peoples' War website (an archive of people's war memories), and thought others might be interested ... It is a series of diary entries by Alfred John Boon, a British soldier stationed in Naples in 1944.

Mar 19th Vesuvius very restless.
Mar 20th Even more so.
Mar 21st Eruption starts. Could see lava erupting from crater. Go up to sites on sides to help evacuation with recovery vehicles. Earth tremors most of the time.
Mar 22nd Tremors during day with loud explosions. Night clouds of smoke with pulsating glows. Showers of ash falling. Continual equipment evacuation.
Mar 23rd Evacuation continues. Canopies on vehicles burnt by ash. Wear balaclavas and helmets night. Great boulders being spewed. Electric storms. Above the crater, lava runs as quick as a stream.
Mar 24th Pity the vineyard owners. Their yards are buried. Help them with their property if possible. Explosions are blowing doors open and causing some structural damage. “Red snow” falling today. Blows in everywhere.
Mar 25th Very little “snow” today. But some rain to churn it up. Material from crater, looks like billowing cauliflowers. Talked to a Volcanologist on mountain. Suggested it was a bit dodgy in their observatory. Said he stay there no matter what. Had waited for it for years.
Mar 26th Very quiet. Dust blowing out to sea. Most equipment moved. Not a lot of damage. Burns mostly to canopies and cables. In Torre Annunziata the dust was a foot deep.
April 1st-4th Visited sites Naples, Salerno, Sorrento. Went to opera Castellammare. Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci.
July 14th Took advance party to Lubico, near Rome. Passed through Cassino. How stupid to smash a place up like that. Didn’t do any good.
July 22nd Went to Scafati. E. and M.E. school, A.O.D. Pontegragnano, Pompeii ruins, and Castlamara, collecting stores and documents. (Not at Pompeii, that was a visit).

There is a great description of the eruption by the British travel writer, Norman Lewis, who was also stationed in Naples (and in charge of approving marriages between British servicemen and local women!), which I don't have to hand. But you can read a bit more about the eruption and the Allied reaction to it in a blog post entitled, 'Where’s a Volcano Monitoring Station When You Need It?'.

Notizie degli Scavi On-line

Screencap of Notizie degli Scavi di Antichita' 1914 from archive.org
Skeletons found in the House of the Cryptoportico

As I was grading papers last term, I was really pleased to see that an undergraduate student had cited the Notizie degli Scavi di Antichita' in her paper on the Temple of Isis at Pompeii. Now, I'm teaching at the ICCS (a.k.a. the Centro) in Rome this academic year, and the student was a characteristically sharp and gung-ho centrista, so this sort of spirited pursuit of the raw stuff of an excavation was not entirely unexpected. But what surprised me was where she had found the Notizie -- on-line.

Perhaps this isn't news to fellow bloggers, but a number of Notizie degli Scavi volumes have been expertly scanned and posted on archive.org. Check it out for yourself. I haven't experimented with all the interfaces, but the handy flip-book option is like browsing, well, a real book (that's the screencap above). You can zoom in and get a closer look at the pictures or text, and -- best of all, from my perspective -- you can even do a search of the journal's text. The run of scanned volumes appears to start with 1878 and end with 1924, and I believe it is even downloadable for poolside Motel Villa dei Misteri pleasure reading.

Though the debate about digitizing books will undoubtedly rage on, this development certainly aids the research of people (like me) who don't usually have a full-run of the NSA at their fingertips. And even for our students who don't have Italian, such a resource might nevertheless open up possibilities for assignments or for interactive demonstrations of how we know what we know about sites like Pompeii.