Enfilade

From Yale UP:

Carol C. Mattusch, ed., Rediscovering the Ancient World on the Bay of Naples, 1710-1890 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 292 pages, ISBN: 9780300189216, $70.

The ancient Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E., drew international attention when excavations commenced in the 1730s. As a result, the nearby city of Naples became a nexus of scholarship, cultural diplomacy, and tourism. This fascinating book examines responses to the excavations by 18th- and 19th-century monarchs, statesmen, scholars, and archaeologists, as well as by artists, architects, designers, writers, and tourists.

Essays by leading art historians and archaeologists chronicle the exploitation of the sites through excavation, publication, and museum display, and discuss the wider influence of the recovered objects and architectural remains on art and design in Italy, France, Germany, and Britain. Unlike other publications that focus on the archaeological artifacts and their documentation, this extensively illustrated book presents the discoveries from
the standpoint of how they were understood at the time.

Carol C. Mattusch is Mathy Professor of Art History in the Department of History and Art History at George Mason University.

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C O N T E N T S

Elizabeth Cropper, Preface

Carol C. Mattusch, Introduction

Alain Schnapp, The Antiquarian Culture of Eighteenth-Century Naples as a Laboratory of New Ideas

Jens Daehner, The Herculaneum Women in Eighteenth-Century Europe

Christopher Parslow, The Sacrarium of Isis in the Praedia of Julia Felix in Pompeii in Its Archaeological and Historical Contexts

Carlo Knight, Politics and Royal Patronage in the Neapolitan Regency: The Correspondence of Charles III and the Prince of San Nicandro, 1759–1767

John E. Moore, “To the Catholic King” and Others: Bernardo Tanucci’s Correspondence and the Herculaneum Project

Steffi Roettgen, German Painters in Naples and Their Contribution to the Revival of Antiquity, 1760–1799

Sophie Descamps-Lequime, The Ferdinand IV Donation to the First Consul and His Wife: Antiquities from the Bay of Naples at Malmaison

Nancy H. Ramage, Flying Maenads and Cupids: Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Eighteenth-Century Decorative Arts

Bruce Redford, Grecian Taste and Neapolitan Spirit: Grand Tour Portraits of the Society of Dilettanti

Eric M. Moormann, Literary Evocations of Herculaneum in the Nineteenth Century

Mary Beard, Taste and the Antique: Visiting Pompeii in the Nineteenth Century

John Pinto, “Speaking Ruins”: Piranesi and Desprez at Pompeii

Eugene J. Dwyer, Pompeii versus Herculaneum