[50] See [Portrait Gallery, No. 121].

DISCOVERY OF THE ANCIENT CITIES.

Part of the Bay of Naples, showing the relative positions of Naples, Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabiæ to Mount Vesuvius.

[Large map.]

In the year 1689, during some excavations in the plain at the foot of Vesuvius, where it was subsequently proved that Pompeii had flourished, a workman observed the regularity with which successive layers of earth and volcanic matter had been deposited. He compared them to pavements one upon the other; with remains of burnt vegetation, charcoal, and common earth beneath each volcanic deposit. Under one of these dense masses of scoria, dust, and pumice stone, he found large quantities of carbonised timber, locks, and iron work, evidently the remains of habitations, which, together with some old keys, and inscriptions giving the name of the locality, satisfied the learned of the day that they belonged to the ancient city of Pompeii. (Venuti, p. 37. Mém. de l’Académie Fran.; Mém. de Littérature, tom. xv. Des Embrasemens du Mont Vésuve, and also Bianchini, Istoria Universale, Roma, 1699, p. 246. Cochin, p. 31). The discovery created little excitement at the time; the government was indisposed to prosecute the research, and no farther excavation was carried on till the year 1749.

Meanwhile, the accidental sinking of a well in another place brought to light such treasures of art as to induce a systematic exploration in a more profitable locality. This was in the neighbourhood of Naples, where after seventeen centuries the city of Herculaneum was once more rescued from oblivion. The circumstances which led to the discovery are briefly these. The prince D’Elbœuf, of the house of Lorraine, came to Naples in 1706 (Cochin, p. 35), and ordered the construction of a marine villa for himself at Portici, in 1711. (Venuti, p. 38. Gori, Admiranda, p. 39.) He had a Frenchman in his service, who possessed the art of making a durable stucco from pulverised marble, and as many fragments of antique marbles as possible were collected for the manufacture of his composition. One day a countryman presented himself, asserting that in sinking a well at Resina (Venuti, p. 39), he had discovered a variety of precious marbles, some of which he had brought with him as specimens. These marbles were so beautiful and rare, that the prince was induced to purchase of the man the right of further excavation, and he immediately commenced a systematic course of exploration upon that spot. The stucco prepared by the Frenchman was not only an imitation of precious marbles, but also a cement similar to that employed by the ancients. Most of the antique buildings were so plastered internally, as it was harder and more durable than marble in its natural state. The excavators, therefore, were more delighted when they found large plain slabs and shafts of columns than elaborately carved foliage and statues, because the latter afforded them a smaller quantity of actual material. Stendardo was appointed to direct the works which were carried on branching sideways from the well, just above the level of the water; (Gori, p. 40. Venuti, p. 39. Cochin, p. 37;) at the expiration of two days, they found a statue of Hercules, evidently from a Grecian chisel, and they remarked with astonishment that it had formerly been restored (Gori, p. 40). Some days after this they came upon a female statue, which was at once pronounced to be a Cleopatra (Gori, p. 40). They next extricated a large square mass of marble, and upon removing a crust of bituminous matter it was found to be the architrave of a gateway, with letters of bronze inlaid into the surface. The inscription was

APPIVS. PVLCHER. CAII. FILIVS.
VIR. EPVLONVM. (Venuti, p. 39.)

Many columns of variegated alabaster were next discovered, and this led to the excavation of a circular temple, with twenty-four columns, and statues of Greek marble between them (Gori, p. 41). The pavement of this building was constructed of that rich yellow marble, called Giallo antico, and many columns of the same material lay in the vicinity. Seven of the twelve figures belonging to the temple were female, executed in a superior Grecian style. Prince Elbœuf dispatched them to Vienna as a present to Prince Eugene of Savoy (Venuti, p. 39). The best of these statues were afterwards sold to the King of Poland for 60,000 scudi; they are now at Dresden, and engraved in plates 19 to 26 of Becker’s “Augusteum” (Winckelmann, Werke, vol. ii. p. 135). The prince evidently knew very little of the real value of his discoveries, and during the next five years continued disinterring pieces of mosaic alabaster slabs, and a few statues, some of which decorated his villa, and the rest were sent over to France. Upon the discovery of a beautiful statue of one of the daughters of Balbus, the state interfered, and the Neapolitan government prohibited any further excavations. For thirty years the site was almost forgotten. In 1736, the King Carlo III. (Borbone) resolved to build a palace at Portici, and the ancient well was once more resorted to. The excavations were resumed, and very important results followed.

Animated discussions were still maintained respecting the name of the ancient city, for a city the excavations had already proved it to be. A communication to the Royal Society by a Mr. Sloane, in 1740, exhibits the matter as still in a state of uncertainty. The Marquis Venuti, keeper of the Farnese library which Carlo Borbone had inherited from Rome, was appointed superintendent of the excavations at Resina. He has left minute records of his proceedings both in the “Admiranda Notizia,” 2 et. seq., of Gori, and in his own work published at Venice and London, 1750. He commenced 12th November, 1738, by carrying on a kind of tunnel laterally from the old well. In a short time (Venuti, p. 40. Gori, p. 42) two bronze equestrian statues were found, and soon after three full length marble figures, larger than life, of Roman dignitaries, dressed in the toga, with massive piers of brick between, plastered with stucco, and painted with arabesques in various colours. The excavators had now reached the interior of the theatre, which the numerous seats and steps clearly indicated. An inscription, moreover, on the architrave contained part of the word Theatre, the name of the person at whose cost the building was erected, and that of the architect. A second inscription on the corresponding architrave of the opposite side is almost a repetition:—