Pompeii and Santorini: at the Scuderie del Quirinale the history of the two sites destroyed by volcanic eruptions

From October 11, 2019 to January 6, 2020, the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome is hosting the exhibition Pompeii and Santorini. Eternity in a Day, which traces the history of the two major volcanic eruptions that affected the island of Thera, now known as Santorini (in 1613 BC) and the city of Pompeii (in 79 AD). The natural disasters at these two sites not only engulfed the two cities, but also a system of thought that resurfaced through archaeological investigations. The exhibition, curated by Massimo Osanna, director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, and Demetrios Athanasoulis, director of the Ephoria of Antiquities of the Cyclades, with Luigi Gallo and Luana Toniolo, displays for the first time together the remains of the two archaeological sites, among the most important and best preserved in the world.

The exhibition offers a never-before-seen comparison through innovative reconstructions and the selection of precious artifacts, in many cases never before exhibited to the public: conceived as a journey through time to discover the two ancient cities, united by an identical end and preserved over the millennia by volcanic ash, it displays more than three hundred objects including statues, frescoes, vases, reliefs, gems, incunabula and paintings, to cover a chronological span of three thousand five hundred years, from the Bronze Age to the present day. A narrative through the halls of the Scuderie del Quirinale that is intended to be immersive thanks to an immersive set-up that winds between reconstructions of environments, with everyday objects, and video art projections. The topics examined deal with various archaeological issues, such as the examination of contexts, the use of plaster casts, the analysis of social customs and rituality, and the study of economic and cultural connectivity in the ancient Mediterranean.

Also on the itinerary are works by modern and contemporary artists (Micco Spadaro, William Turner, Filippo Palizzi, Arturo Martini, Renato Guttuso, Andy Warhol, Alberto Burri, Richard Long, Antony Gormley, Giuseppe Penone, Francesco Jodice, Damien Hirst, James P. Graham, Hans Op de Beeck, Francesco Simeti) with the idea of indicating how much the rediscovery of buried cities has nurtured the collective imagination, taking visitors on a journey between past and present.

“The diverse cultural identities that make up the elaborate mosaic of the ancient Mediterranean,” says Massimo Osanna, “find in Akrotiri, on the island of Santorini, and Pompeii two emblematic cases. Invested by similar eruptions, more than 1,700 years apart, the cities return perfectly preserved buildings, frescoes, and artifacts that make it possible to resurrect two rich and complex civilizations, equally evoking the catastrophe that ended their history. The rediscovery of buried cities, moreover, has nourished the artistic imagination, offering itself at the same time as an iconographic subject and food for thought for the evocation of natural catastrophes.The institutional collaboration between the Archaeological Park of Pompeii and the Cycladic Ephoria has in this exhibition its natural point of arrival. We wanted to combine the archaeological investigation with the geological reading of the volcanic events so that the public can understand the unique state of preservation of the two cities.Of equal importance is the presence in the exhibition of some modern and contemporary works, chosen for their evocative power.”

“The Ephorate of the Cyclades has decided to implement an outward-looking exhibition policy,” says Demetrios Athanasoulis, “with exhibitions both in Greece and abroad that aim to promote the monumental heritage of the Cyclades and to make antiquity a source of culture and knowledge, but also of pleasure and quality entertainment. The exhibition at the Scuderie del Quirinale is an expression of this vision, and by bringing materials from the prehistoric city of Akrotiri out of Greece for the first time, it will allow the general public to learn about the face of the ’Pompeii’ of the prehistoric Aegean.”

“It is an exhibition that is fully in line with our exhibition tradition of first-rate international relations and organic connection with the main Italian cultural sites and institutions, in this case the Archaeological Park of Pompeii,” adds Mario De Simoni, president of Scuderie del Quirinale. “Still on the subject of the activities that have always distinguished Scuderie del Quirinale, for this exhibition as well we have designed specific educational proposals aimed at different age groups, starting with three-year-old children, and a rich program of meetings and lectures by scholars and experts of international caliber.”

Special events and workshops contribute to enriching and deepening the contents of the exhibition: school students, for example, will be able to test themselves with workshops on the archaeologist’s craft where they will be involved in recognizing finds from an excavation. Older children, on the other hand, can venture on a literary tour of the exhibition accompanied by the words of writers and philosophers from antiquity to the 20th century. In addition to the workshops and meetings hosted inside the Scuderie del Quirinale, the exhibition offers a series of appointments at Teatro Argentina in Rome led by archaeologists, art historians, intellectuals and journalists to investigate the eruptive phenomenon from the scientific, geological and social points of view as well as proposing a sort of virtual walk through the exhibition halls.

For all info you can visit the Scuderie del Quirinale website.

Pictured: Joseph William Mallord Turner, The eruption of the Souffrier Mountains, in the Island of Saint Vincent (1815; oil on canvas, 79.4 x 104.8 cm; Liverpool, Victoria Gallery & Museum)

Pompeii and Santorini: at the Scuderie del Quirinale the history of the two sites destroyed by volcanic eruptions

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