Is Pompeii in a state of emergency -- again?

The Italian government apparently wants to renovate Pompeii and make it more user-friendly. The response to this announcement in the British press has been largely favourable – and no doubt struck a chord with many visitors.

It is, after all, terribly irritating to have to enter the site through battalions of private enterprise guides who swoop upon you with the standard: “You English? You want guide?”. It is also irritating to find many of the best houses in the town closed. Currently, for example, the famous House of the Vettii is closed for restoration.

That said, the new Berlusconi idea that all can be solved by a new “Pompeii commissioner” isn’t as attractive as many UK newspapers have implied. It all depends what you want Pompeii to be and what you think the problems are.

There isn’t actually much the matter with the current administration of Pompeii (apart from lack of funds) – and a very great deal to be said in its favour.

OK, the site is gradually crumbing (of course it is, it’s 2000 year old construction – and a  lot of it has been exposed to the elements and periodic earth tremors for 200 years). Much of what you would like to see is off-limits, for want of custodians to keep an eye on it and on you.   And there have been some nasty recent incidents of theft. But look behind the headlines and the Berlusconi “solution” doesn’t seem so attractive.

For a start, the new Minister of Culture, Sandro Bondi, who is proposing the new scheme is a well-known “Forza Italia” supporter, a man so keen on his master that he has written poems in praise of  Berlusconi. These guys are not the relatively harmless right wing now represented by the British Tory party (or New Labour, for that matter). If you want a taste of this Italian government, just remember that the newly elected mayor of Rome (replacing Francesco Rutelli who had also been Minister of Culture) was greeted by shouts of “Duce , Duce” and is a self-confessed fan of Mussolini.

And the man tipped for the job as “commissioner’ for Pompeii, Mario Mori, is another Berlusconi loyalist, the head of the Italian Security Services. The best you can expect from this man is a Thatcherite campaign of corporate (and highly paying) parties on the site – BP dinners in the House of the Menander? The worst is beyond contemplating.

This is all bonkers. Pompeii is in difficulties, it is starved of money and too much of it is closed. But many of the criticisms made by Berlusconi’s government (as they are reported) are ill-informed. There may be an under-provision of loos,  but it is not the case that there is no restaurant. There is also a good bookshop stocked with plenty of maps and guides to the site. A new system of on-line booking allows any visitor with internet access to book an appointment to see a series of places usually closed (though occasionally the man with the key does forget to turn up). It is still an absolutely wonderful place to visit. And that’s partly because it is done without touristic tricks. What you see is what you get and that is more than good enough.

Besides, in my experience, the staff at Pompeii are wonderfully co-operative, helpful and “can-do” beyond all the odds. You get a good sense of the administrative attitude of any archaeological site when you want to get permission to research it. All kinds of authorities simply dig in their heels or are  generally unhelpful (I was once told that I could only be allowed into the circle at  Stonehenge at dawn – thus demanding an overnight stay etc etc….). At Pompeii, over the last decade, both I and my students, have been helped to see everything we have ever wanted, with speed and good humour. Unlike some other guardians of world treasures, the Pompeian authories welcome foreign scholars, and are exemplary facilitators.

The current boss of Pompeii, Pietro Giovanni Guzzo, is an excellent scholar who has done a great job and written intelligently about the management of the site. He needs more cash to go on doing it – not a commissioner, fresh from the security services.

Comments

[Richard]

Lord Truth: I have risen to the bait and submitted a reply to your Parthenon marbles comments... So you need not feel ignored.
All best,
Richard

[Richard]

"I hope you have all studied and appreciated my comment about the Elgin marbles on The New Acropolis is Good so that nonsense is finished" - does this translate as "come on guys (chaps, people): when I write something deliberately tendentious and provocative, I don't do it so that everybody will ignore me!".

[betty]

Autralian teachers - of which I am one - get their long holiday in summer - which is to say, January. So that's when we travel to Europe. I spent a day at Pompeii in winter. It was deserted, apart from me and my partner and a group of maybe fifteen students on an excursion. We could wander freely, there were no guides,the cafe was open but they seemed surprised to see us. I don't recall anything I wanted to see being unavailable. We spent a happy day wandering alone. Bloody cold though.

Surely the real objection to guys is its masculine nature? Having spent the sixties refusing to be a chairman or to be reassured that man meant woman as well, I object to it as the creeping return of sexist language.

[Tony Francis]

Dear Lord T: I have studied your post about the Elgin Marbles in depth. You seem to be assuring us that theft isn't really theft, and that Mary Beard is a fence sitter. Also, that the Nazis would have built the modern Athens museum. The Nazis seem to have had a hankering for Greco-Roman architecture.
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_architecture
Albert Speer designed a building called the "Zeppelintribune", which looks bizarre, and lacking in any inspiration.
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Speer
When I was in medical school, I used to hang out with the Jews who had a peculiar habit of cloistering themselves into a self-imposed ghetto, for no perceivable reason. I think I was too goyem for most of their parochial tastes. But one used to drag me to every Kansas City Royals baseball game. No one else would go with him. I think he was more interested in baseball than medical school. He used to wear a goofy plastic batting helmet. He got so angry he cracked the helmet in half on the seat in front of him, uttering some words I won't repeat here. He ended up a pediatrician in Chicago.
The Dutch surgeon I spent time with told me the word "Yankee" was Dutch for "Jan Kees" meaning John Cheese, a Dutch variant of "Joe Blow".

[PL]

Lord Truth, "guy" (fellow) from "goy" (gentile) seems a tone-deaf guess. Have you any evidence for it? OED records "guy", "a person of grotesque appearance" from 1836 -- (derived of course from the Guy Fawkes effigy). To go on from that association to ordinary "guy" seems much more likely.
Interesting that in current usage "a guy" is always male but "guys" can be male, female or both.

I read your comment on the Parthenon post with rich appreciation -- especially the comparison of the museum to an airport terminal. "Architecture of hate" may be an exaggeration, but "architecture of boorish, ostentatious insensitivity".

[anthony alcock]

A good reason for compulsory local guides is to check where people go and what they do. Visitors to Pompeii are probably psychologically well balanced, but there are others less so. I have seen people in the temple of Edfu (Upper Egypt) "praying" to the god Horus. It provides entertainment and a topic of conversation for those of us who escort visitors to these places, but it also tends to upset the local monument guardians. And there's no need for that.

[Tony Francis]

Mary's use of the word "guys" raises the question: "You can take the girl out of California, but you can you take California out of the girl?" Evidently not. Which is worse, a vulgar Americanism, or a vulgar Californianism? Concerning travel to Pompeii, it is clear that if we are going to get serious about global warming, all airline flights will have to be reduced to about 5%-10% of present levels. Hence, in the near future, the only ones who can go to Pompeii (and other places) will the ultra-wealthy (who can solve the problem of lack of funds at these places by paying up front), or to get there on methane producing donkeys.

[Lord Truth]

The Americanism Guy actually derives from Jewish -Yiddish -Goyem (or similar) -meaning non Jew .

I hope you have all studied and appreciated my comment about the Elgin marbles on The New Acropolis is Good so that nonsense is finished

[PL]

Asmodeus raises an interesting philological point. "Guy" for chap, bloke, fellow, etc, is clearly an Americanism yet apparently derives (like the verb "to guy") from the name of an Englishman whom most Americans have probably never heard of. Perhaps chaps were first called guys in England and that usage, having crossed the Atlantic, was eventually dropped in its place of origin -- and later revived for the same reason it was dropped: it ain't genteel?

[Asmodeus]

A pity that a Cambridge professor should feel the need to exhibit her up-to-datedness by using the vulgar americanism "guys". Please leave that to the sports commentators.
Also please note that the use of "Thatcherite" has now become as obvious a sign of mental laziness as the vacuous "fascist" and "racist".

[anthony alcock]

wandering is frowned on in egypt. locals have to make a living.

[Mary]

Kate.. I will forgive the odd bit of inefficiency when served with a dose of good will...i think that's the difference from stonehenge.

Beyond contemplation? Ok maybe an exaggeration. But in addition to the corporate events and subsequent closures (sorry this is a BP area today..), I'm thinking of aggressive conservation and rebuilding, visitor facilities (some little electric trains to take you around the site...involving a modicum of demotion...and loos everywhere), plus some treasure-seeking excavation..and a vast increase in admission fees..

oh..and compulsory guides..no wandering

[Kate]

"though occasionally the man with the key does forget to turn up"
sounds rather like:
"I was once told that I could only be allowed into the circle at Stonehenge at dawn"
does it not?

[anthony alcock]

It's not entirely clear to me what you think Berlusconi's "Pompeii Czar" will do. "Beyond contemplating" is a bit vague. Is it really that bad ? It does, though, bring to mind what I heard people in Rome say about Ostia and the archaeological damage Mussolini caused there in an effort to tart the place up before Hitler arrived to visit.

[maxine]

I went to Pompeii last summer, and although you are right about the private enterprise guides, they can also save you money by tipping you off about how to get the child discounts etc at the ticket desk -- otherwise, if you aren't familiar with Italian, you would pay more than you need to. I found our guide quite good though he refused to deviate from his script and show us Caecilius's house (we found it afterwards: it was closed!).

Although I am sure you are right and things could be improved, I was pretty impressed overall that you could wander round the ruins to your heart's content. It is also very easy and cheap to get to Pompeii via the Naples to Sorrento train service, which stops right outside. I can imagine that a "Pompeii commissoiner" might make everything far more organised and formal, and expensive, to the detriment of the rather delightful Italian free enterprise feel of the current set-up.

[F.Gamberini]

Calma.
I'm suspicious of this government too; I didn't vote for them and never will. But policies will matter more than the outdated chants of a few bullshitters. The appreciation of Mussolini, as reported in the article you quote, is misguided but doesn't amunt to much -and the EUR site was also appeciated by my namesake Fellini.

[James Sibal]

What is the current situation with the monies given to the city and the entrance fees? And how are problems prioritized?

[Marcus]

I agree that the real problem of Pompeii is a financial one. Its current boss is an excellent manager. But Mr. Berlusconi is not really interested in solving Italy's problems. These days his main concern is how to stop his many trials, especially the Mills affair. His government team is composed of unqualified yes-men and former showgirls. The finance minister, Mr Tremonti, is a law professor turned amateur economist. The worst is beyond contemplating...

[Mary]

Thanks Giorgia.. how stupid of me to forget Veltroni. All the same "daft" is one thing... "duce duce!" quite another, m

[Giorgia]

Actually, Gianni Alemanno, the new Mayor of Rome isn't replacing Francesco Rutelli, but Walter Veltroni (who was Mayor of Rome from 2001 to 2008). Rutelli was Mayor of Rome before him, and ran again for the job against Alemanno - losing the elections mostly because people in Rome remember how daft his administration was the first time round.