Il parco archeologico e ambientale di Posillipo o del Pausilypon

Inserito da: · Settembre 10, 2016

Album fotografico di Marcello Erardi

Parte storica di Aniello Langella

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The primary object of this work is to provide students of Archaeology with a comprehensive description, as complete as possible, of the extant
remains of the Imperial Villa on Posilipo. With this aim the site was surveyed, an inventory of the antiquities taken and the results of researches, carried on in vacations between the years 1893 – 1907, combined with an account of what little may be gleaned from ancient writers and with the records of previous investigators. To all this i have added a resuncoimy discoveries of the nearer submarine antiquities, previously described in Earth-movemeiifs in the Bay of Naples, both because they formed an integral part of the Imperial Villa and because that book, now nearly out of print, is likely to become rare. Those studies are still the only ones in the domain of submarine archaeology that have been published, but the recent rumour of the finding of a submerged Greek town on Pharos Bank off the Island of Lemnos in the Egean seems to indicate that there may be other and wider areas for research. No description of the Pausilypon has yet appeared in English, norindeed are the Italian accounts much more than meagre reports on the early excavations of di Pietro. It has been our good fortune to find there a classical site of first-rate importance almost untouched by modern scientific archaeologists. To many it is less attractive because the portable antiquities have been pilfered : the local scholars and antiquaries are so fully taken up with the amount of work still to be done in Pompeii and on other Campanian sites, that they cannot entend their operations; yet in point of importance the site of Pausilypon is second to none in all that classic region, and is worthy of the closest and most scientific study and investigation. Some apology may be thought necessary for the amount of constructional detail and for the numerous measurements with which the text bristles, but in a first investigation it is impossible to judge what detail may prove to be important and what may not; and in this case much will assuredly be destroyed before the next survey is ever made. My chief aim throughout has been truth and accuracy and many of the measurements have been verified on subsequent visits, but i am only too well aware that many errors must have remained undetected, and now i am no longer in a position to check any of the statements. My opportunities for the prosecution of these studies were very exceptional for an Englishman in Italy. The most important of the sites were in the possession of friends and fellow country men. I had the advantage of being able to make my home on the spot, to have the use of boats of good construction, to secure the ready advice of experts, and to preser e amicable relations with the Neapolitan fishermen, a jealous class of men who might otherwise have viewed our proceedings with a lively suspicion. I gladly take this opportunity of payng a tribute of gratitude to all those who afforded these facilities, particularly to my father-in-law the late Mr. Neville-Rolfe, H.B.M. Consul-General for South Italy, and to the Earl of Rosebery in whose beautiful villa on Posilipo we lived, and whose Neapolitan library, put at my disposal, was of the greatest help; but, when looking out over the sunken foreshore of the Villa, what wouldn’t we have given for five minutes’ chat with one of Lord Rosebery’s Struldbrugs ‘ whose undimmed meniory might bridge the abj-ss of time and reconstruct for us the scene as Virgil might have seen it! I must also express my obligations to my kind friend the late Mr. Nelson Foley and to Signor Acampora, the proprietors of the Gaiola Islands and of the buildings of the Imperial Villa on the mainland, to Master Innes Foley for showing me several interesting fragments of terra-cotta or marble that his quick eye had perceived in the heaps of debris and which he had hoarded under the appropriate name of ‘ keeping-stuff’, and to nij- wife for wading through the proof-sheets. The plans, maps, photographs and drawings have mostly been made by mj-self, but those which have been borrowed from others are acknowledged in the text. Thanks are due to the Council of the Society’ ot Antiquaries for permitting me to borrow the illustrations to m}’ previous papers published in Arcliacologia in 1903 and 1912 respective! Magdalen College, Oxford. June 23, 1913. 1

Che questo fosse stato il sito della villa di Vedio Pollione è voce costante di tutti i nostri scrittori, argomentandolo da quanto ne scrisse Plinio ) ed altri, e molto più da un luogo di Dione ) il quale ne determina il sito tra Napoli, e Pozzuoli. Non sarà inutile il riferire qui ciò che ne scriveva lo stesso Fabio Giordano nella storia sopra lodata: In extremo hujus collis promontorio, quod extremum caput appellatur, fuit Caesaris villa *) et piscinae a Plinio et Columella , ob piscium frequentiam eorumque raritatem maxime commendatae. Plinius lib. IX cap. 53 etc. Fuerat haec Vedi Pollionis ejusdem Augusti hospitis, muraenarumque vivario quae projectis cadaveribus vescerentur cognitissimi , de quo Plinius lib. IX cap. 25 de Muraena etc. Dio lib. LIV etc. Hunc morientem Augusto legasse auctor est ipse Dio et Xiphilinus in ejus libri Dionis epitome in Augusto. Calandosi per alcuni burroni nella parte bassa della villa, vedonsi tuttora nel mare alcuni ruderi di quelle antiche piscine o vivaj fatti costruire da Vedio Pollione per tenervi rinchiuse le murene, ivi adunate a soddisfare la smodata ghiottornìa del possessore. Questi vivaj, per quanto sembra , consistevano in grandi vasche scavate nel masso del monte, nelle quali erano praticati alcuni fori custoditi da cancelli di ferro o d’altro metallo, al doppio oggetto di assicurare la communicazione colle acque del mare vicino, ed impedire che ne uscissero i pesci, allettati per altro a rimanervi dall’ abbondante esca che loro si dava. Sopra un poggio osservasi un rocchio di colonna alto palmi 8 col plinto, e lo stilobato corrispondente: sul plinto leggonsi le sigle Q. T. C. delle quali non saprebbesi ora indovinare il significato, se pure esse non indicano il nome dell’ignoto artefice, o piuttosto, per quanto pare, sono segni artistici per la disposizione, ed il collocamento della colonna medesima. Dalla parte opposta sul poggio istesso havvi un basamento soltanto, che dà indizio manifesto di esservi stata posata un’altra colonna simile. Nell’interstizio tra il rocchio della prima, ed il vestigio dell’altra , lo stesso F. M. Mazza collocò un’altra iscrizione, la quale per essere, egualmente che la prima, sconosciuta finora, io in questo podere , come con asseve sanza si afferma nell’iscrizione, veggasi quanto si dirà in appresso. Confronta ancora quanto ne scrisse l’autore delle memorie di antichità e belle arti ch’esistono in Miseno etc. Napoli 1812 in 4 p. 17o. 2


 

Bibliografia

    1. Da Pausilypon, the imperial villa near Naples, with a description of the submerged foreshore and with observations on the tomb of Virgil. Di R. T. Gunter. 1913.
    2. Da Osservazioni intorno alcune antiche iscrizioni che sono o furono giá in Napoli. Di Agostino Gervasio. Napoli 1842, pagina 65

 

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https://www.facebook.com/Marcello.foto1973/photos/a.1075762385872937.1073743177.505311336251381/1075762995872876/?type=3&theater

 

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https://archive.org/stream/pausilyponimper00gunt

Discussione3 Comments

  1. Felice Di Maro ha detto:

    Interessante le notazioni di Fabio Giordano.

  2. mari ha detto:

    ………..Complimenti amici cariChe questo fosse stato il sito della villa di Vedio Pollione è voce costante di tutti i nostri scrittori, argomentandolo da quanto ne scrisse Plinio ) ed altri, e molto più da un luogo di Dione ) il quale ne determina il sito tra Napoli, e Pozzuoli. Non sarà inutile il riferire qui ciò che ne scriveva lo stesso Fabio Giordano nella storia sopra lodata: I…..grazie mille

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