As promised my first article VIP( The personality you must know better) GIUSEPPE FIORELLI THE PLASTER CASTS

Buongiorno Friends & Clientsas promised I will keep your interest to my beautiful area vivid with my articlesFollow me virtually in my days without toursIf you have specific request or questions I will be happy to involve them in my articles

A presto Veronica 

Great Personalities of Pompeii- Giuseppe Fiorelli

Not only the inventor of the “Plaster-casts”

Pompeii is for all visitors a great experience, I never met someone who was not fascinated by the sight. If you ask your clients what impressed them more, the most answer with THE PLASTERCAST

So my decision to introduce to you this great man, who changed in a significant way the excavations of Pompeii ( and the entire Archaeology)

Thank the energy and vision of Giuseppe Fiorelli(1823-96) Pompeii became the show case of the new unified Italian Kingdom. Fiorelli was a lawyer and numismatist, he worked in the coin room of the Museum of Naples but after an argument with the director of the museum he was transferred to Pompeii as an inspector of the excavation in 1847. The political situation was not very easy and the future father of the “PLASTER CAST” was also imprisoned for ten month accused of political crimes by the former director of the excavation Carlo Bonucci.

great personalities never have an easy character

By 1863 he became Director of Pompeii and the Museum of Naples and began to transform the archaeological methods. He was a free thinker with the idea that Archeology should be more than simply entertainment of visitors. He allowed for the first time anyone to visit the excavation by instituting an entrance fee which payed for custodian and guides, so Pompeii became part of the cultural heritage of the Italian people for the education and enjoyment of everybody

Also the work inside Pompeii made huge changes, excavators sought to penetrate buildings from above for the first time, layer by layer, rather than tunneling from the streets that had been previous practice. This helped to limitate b.e the collapsing of buildings.

In order to end amateur excavation he established an archaeological school in 1866 to train the future generation of Archaeologist

He is the one who subdivide the Town in Region and Insula

But this great personality changed completely the view we have of Pompei with another incredible discovery intuition

The Plaster Cast

Before Fiorelli: already in 1771 during the excavation of the Villa of Diomede the skeleton of a young girl had been uncovered. The shape of her bosom had beed perfectly preserved when ash had hardened around her. The technique of using plaster of Paris to fill such cavities in the ash had been used to plastercasts of wooden furniture

With Fiorelli

He was the first to apply the technique to the victims of the eruption and his result were incredible, revealing details as such facial expression and clothing. Many bodies has been found in the sol called pugilistic “attitude” (about this particular detail I will write in future)

Since than the technique has also been used to make casts of root cavaties, which allowes excavator to identify which plants and crops were grown in different gardens through the town

In more simple words:

By the discovering of a cavity that indicated the presence of humanin the solidificated vulacanic material, Fiorelli and his team decided to pour plaster into the voids. They let the plaster harden, then chipped away the outer layers of ash the result is the cast of the victim in the moment of their deth.

Today we have the opportunity to see the inhabitant of Pompeii, to look in their faces and see there expression. This particular moment is one of the unforgettable experience that Pompeii offers to everybody

Grazie Fiorelli