Pompeii - Nature and Architecture

Clelia CIRILLO1, Luigi SCARPA2, Giovanna ACAMPORA1, Barbara BERTOLI1,Raffaela ESPOSITO1, Marina RUSSO1

(1)CNR Institute of Agro-Environmental and Forest Biology

Via Pietro Castellino, 111 Naples, Italy clelia.cirillo@ibaf.cnr.it - giovanna.acampora@ibaf.cnr.it - barbara.bertoli@cnr.it - raffaela.esposito@ibaf.cnr.it - marina.russo@ibaf.cnr.it (2)

University of Naples Federico II – Master Urban Planning, Naples, Italy luscarpa@unina.it

Abstract This paper is aimed at surpassing the cultural tradition that encourages the humanistic knowledge more than the naturalistic one in the refurbishment of the archaeological sites. The contribution of botanic sciences in the reconstruction of ancient landscapes is essential to gather wide-range information about the ancient flora. Supporting this cross-disciplinary approach means intensifying the debat and the comparison between all of the different specialists involved in the problem. The main purpose of this paper is to integrate the restoration of architectural and residential buildings with archaeobotanical restoration of areas which were once thought for the green areas. To exemplify the method that we wanted to use in this paper, we have fine tuned the data relative to the plants findings related to Regio I’s insula 9. For the philologic study of Pompeii’s ancient green spaces, the archaeobotanic data prepared by Annamaria Ciarallo have been analyzed. The recovery of botanic species is fundamental for the fruition of archaeologic heritage, while integration of the study of paleobotanics in the restoration of archaeologic sites is an added value to the analysis of the historical landscape.

Keywords: Ancient Pompeii - Archaeobotanics - Architectural Restoration - Historical Landscape - Regio I

Image 1: J. L. Chifflot (1903) House of the Centenary - cross section through the peristyle.

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1. Greek influence in the urban implant of Historical Pompeii

Ancient Pompeii preserved the Italic trace even after intensely absorbing and re-elaborating the influences of Greek architecture and town planning; the fact that the city was divided in neighborhoods since the Sannitic Age can be understood from the few names given to the streets, thresholds and towers stored in the Oscan inscriptions. In the urban expansion of the IV century, the town was planned according to greek models, initially inspired by Nepalis, built by Greeks in consonance with Hippodamus of Miletus’ principles, the first town planner to discuss of the polis’space in its double meaning of the greek word city/state and physical city. Hippodamus’ idea was focused on the division of the urban territory in three parts: sacred, common and private; in his idea, the spatial organization is to be connected with the social organization, and the space is divided in specific sub-spaces and consigned to the social groups. Hippodamus was not the inventor of the grid arrangement, seen as a technical form of spatial arrangement, but actually the inventor of the territory’s division in line with a connection between land and law. The orthogonal grad - that was not invented rather codified by Hippodamus - is an example of aesthetic/functional innovation that builds a city plan respecting tradition and democracy; in the colonization project the expansion plans were compared to existing cities and are identified basing on their relationships: the planning of new cities is not out of this criteria, the urban design is not subtracted from the comparison with the reality of ancient cities. In fact, as much as Pompeii was object of remarkable urban and architectural transformations already from Samnites that were not able to exclude the greek influence; the city’s layout derived from Hippodamus does not show the rigid right-angle placement and the blocks do not have constant sizes, as it is in Nepalis; even the houses are differentiated, as written by Capasso in the act of describing Neapolis’ housing typology and highlighting how the development given by the Greek and Roman civilizations to the primordial form of courtyard houses was different: “not even the way of grouping the rooms around the primordial courtyard was identical;… it is though certain that the Greek civilization… added to the original implant other open-air areas, surrounded by colonnades and wide rooms. These kinds of extension were obtained later on by the Roman house, taking them… from the Greek house; so we reach… the Pompeian House, which in its essential arrangement is very similar to the Hellenistic period’s Greek houses… a different lifestyle was there between the Nepalis’ and Pompeii’s houses, and it deserves to be described. Neapolis’ house was predestined to a cozy life, far from the street’s movement. And, according to this, Priene’s exploration has demonstrated that the houses’ entrances… were not placed down the main roads, but in the alleys that cut orthogonally. Maybe the same happened in Naples, in which the islands were left almost blind towards the Decumanus. Instead, the sense of life’s intimacy demonstrated by the Pompeiian house is lesser, as this typology tends to leave front doors on the main streets” (Capasso, 1905). Nevertheless, despite the lack of exactness, Pompeii represents an example of systematical urban planing in Italy; the roads’ system fixes the area’s general division rule in squared and rectangular elements which the houses will be placed. So the block/insula the mediation element between the single housing unit and the city itself, as it is defined outside by a public element, the street, and inside by the aggregation of a private element, the house. The ash blanket has perfectly conserved the basic element of the ancient, still recognizable in the fragmentation of the block: the domus. 1.2 Urban Housing and Green Spaces in Ancient Pompeii

The building development of the inner city seems to have happened in later moments even if, probably, in a short period of time (Franciosi, 2009); anyway, the archaeological site offers the possibility of knowing the Pompeiian house built during its historical and social development, lasted more than four centuries. In the northern area we see the more ancient houses with severe facades, closed by big limestone squared blocks from the first Samnite age (425-200 b.C.). In the second Samnite age (200-80 b.C.) in the building development we have a deeper Hellenistic influence from the close cities of Dicearchia, Cumae and Neapoli; in the field of architecture we see new elements from the Greek culture, such as peristyles, nucleus of the Hellenistic house. In the republican period (80-27 b.C.) housing architecture is characterized by the restoration activities that were necessary following the damages suffered in the war and by enlargement projects of the existing buildings. An important infrastructural contribution can be seen in the early imperial age (27 b.C. - 54 a.d.) with the connection of the Pompeiian water pipelines with the aqueduct built by Augustus in the Serino valley, and this water provision encouraged several Hellenistic-inspired trends such as the art of gardening (ars topiaria) that introduced new architectural and decorative forms. In the last period (54-79 a.d.) Pompeii’s buildings were partly interested by renovation works as a consequence of the 52 a.d. earthquake; the Isis Temple and the Amphitheater are the only monuments that were completed before the eruption of the year 79 a.d., while in the wealthier houses the refurbishment was almost completed, although nullified by the explosion of the Vesuvius.

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Image 2: Pompeii city plan the numbering of blocks and houses in Ancient Pompeii. The numbering of the blocks and

hauses of Ancient Pompeii, commonly accepted in Pompeiian literature, is conformed to the division of the archeological site in nine Regiones, wich are in turn devided in insulas, as coded by Fiorelli in 1875.

Pompeii, commonly accepted in Pompeiian literature, conforms to the division of the archaeological site in nine regiones, in turn divided in Insulas, codified by Fiorelli in 1875 The Vesuvian cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum are amongst the richest documentations available about archaeobotany; the peculiarity of the ancient city’s burial allowed plant findings; the documentation represented by the ground’s shaping and from the cavities left by the roots represent only the tangible example of the green areas’ organization in a two-millennums-old town Ciarallo, 2012). Annamaria Ciarallo in her book Gli Spazi Verdi dell’Antica Pompeii states that “… there’s no house in Ancient Pompeii that didn’t have a green space: in the oldest houses, that can be dated back to around the fourth and third century b.C. in their original structure, the smallest areas, the horti, seemed to respond to what highlighted by Pliny the Elder, whom relates the terms hortus and heredium” (Ciarallo, 2012). In the most ancient times of the classical world, the voice heredium was kind of a synonymous of hortus, of which the etymology can be deducted by Greek χορτοσ/grass, term which was subsequently associated to a grassy, bounded spot(Nibby, 1839), up to specifying a specific-sized piece of land intended to produce vegetables and fruit. These cultivated areas inside the houses were used for familiar farming up to the second centuryy b.C.; the houses of this period correspond to the italic type, and recall the etruscan model recalled by Vitruvius’ descriptions, built in bricks or ashlar stone formed by a singular rectangular room, covered by a four-slopes roof, pierced to allow the smoke’s expulsion. Since the second century b.C. the influence of the Hellenistic world started to interest the Pompeiian house, too, in fact the typology evolves and more rooms are added around the open-air central space; the introduction of architectural elements such as colonnade and arcades transforms the hortus in perystilium/colonnade garden. In the Patrician domus, we have the insertion of new Greek style architectural elements, as in the case of the introduction of the perystilium, which is the nucleus of the Hellenistic house that was never supplied with the atrium, unlike the Samnite house, whose presence is seen by the House of the Surgeon (VI, 1, 9.10); the peristyle is no longer a central court but it becomes a garden, closed in the ionic or doric columns quadrangle; following the atrium and the tablinium, which are generally in axis with the entrance, the peristyle creates a suggestive architectural perspective. In Pompeii the green spaces inside the houses have a great importance; in each house, even in smaller ones, a green space is always present. The study of the plant findings from the green spaces of the domus have demonstrated that they were characterized by

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lawns with several herbaceous species, few shrubby species and fruit trees (Ciarallo, 2012). The green areas spotted within the walls have been identified by Dr. Ciarallo’s team on the base of the characteristics and the private/public intended use; within the urban space, near the domus’, public and sacred buildings green areas, productive and artisanal green spaces have been located (Jashemsky 1979°; Ciarallo 2004).

2. Architecture and Nature in the Domus Pompeiana In the domus pompeiana the green space is introduced diffusely and constantly, juxtaposing new spaces to the typology of the house; in the older Smite tradition Pompeiian houses, the green space is always organized in a small viridarium placed outside the atrium and the tablinium, while in other houses example the viridarium creates a middle environment between the court and the garden, transforming the peristyle in a garden or pergola in which vines create a domestic garden. The evolution of the Pompeiian domus goes on according to a specific architectural formula, that transforms plants into architectural elements. Within the walls of the domus, where the soil is sufficiently wide, the hortus is placed side by side with an original architectural solution: the viridarium; full and empty spaces are organized according to a axis symmetrical and ornamental conception of the different environments; the vegetation elements become construction elements of the domus: plant covered walls and hedges that create routes, transforming open spaces in green spaces in which vegetables, medical and ornamental plants can be cultivated. The Pompeiian domus’ ornamental garden, the same as the roman one, can be found in the space of the peristyle and it is made by flower beds delimited by drainage channels, fences or laths. Most of the times the gardens were richly monumentalized with statues, fountains, bodies of water and triclinia cover by pergola and sacred by the Lari shrine. Pompeii was strongly affected by the Hellenistic-Inspired fashion of the gardening art, which lead to new architectural an ornamental forms; the gardens were enriched with caves and artificial waterfalls, connected with the rituals dedicated to nature; the vegetable garden was transformed from a food-productionarea to pleasant amusement and relaxation spot. The gardens were filled with statues of the deities of fecundity and Dionysiac mysteries, placed on the sides of the marble pools that, recalling the Egyptian culture, were presented in the shape of euripi, canals that symbolize the route of the Nile and used to keep the plants alive. A constant element in the garden was the nymphaeum, whose faux rock coating was designed to make the environment of the cave a place of meditation and veneration of the nature’s forces. In the organization of the Pompeiian domus the nature was being introduced, implementing in it an emulation, and artifice: the green space in fact had a fundamental importance in which the element water was used as ornament (Borghi, 1997). In the domus water is predominant, it gushes through marble steps or sprinkled from apsidal fountains placed in front of the garden’s last wall, whose mosaic coating allowed it glares to shine. The meals had a sacral connotation, too, and from a merging between sacred and profane we have the birth of the concept of triclinium or biclinium set in the nymphaeum-cave or open air, in the garden; in internal triclinia the love for nature is expressed through the decorated walls with the so-called horti picti, paintings that represented plants and animals.

Image 3: Pompei, Insula 9 Regio I. Recostruction of the building types. 2015 sat image Earth.

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2.1 The architectural elements The excavation of an urban complex such as Pompeii gives a broad and varied documentation of the private houses used in the classical world, which is testimony of domestic architecture’s evolution during the centuries. In Pompeii, the most used type of house is the domus atria, characterizing architectural element of the italic-roman civilization; the house was developed around a central nucleus that was the atrium, a generally large court crowned by an opened roof (compluvium) and equipped with a water collecting tank (impluvium). In the earlier centuries, the fireplace was in the atrium, around which family life took place. This room was soon abandoned, even though a small raised platform called cartibulum kept symbolizing the implrvium’s fireplace. The traditional pertinence of the atrium was a shrine reserved to the domestic worship, usually shaped as a small hollow or kiosk, with the back wall frescoed with lararium images. Vitruvius describes five types of atrium: Tuscanicum, the most ancient and widespread, in which the weight of the roof is supported uniquely by the horizontal beams; Tetrastylum, with a column in each of the four angles of the impluvium; Corinthium, with a broader number of columns ad a wide opening for the light; Displuviatum,of which we don’t have an archaeological documentation, with roof slopes towards the lateral walls to drain water in showers in the four angles; Testudinatum, without the impluvium, used only in small and nonimportant environments. The entrance of the house, articulated in vestibule and fauces, lead to the atrium, around which we have the bedrooms (cubicula), the banquet hall (oecus triclinare or triclinium) and the boardroom (tablinuim), placed in front of the fauces (entrance), behind which there was a space used for the garden (hortus). This type of house, which had no openings towards the outside, appeared to be closed to itself. This building types, that was differentiated according to the different cases for size, was substantially modified during the second century b.C: thanks to the song influences coming from the hellenistic house type, influences that can be read by especially in the substitution of the hortus with a big garden portico (perystilium) surrounded by rooms. The environments of the house looking the decumans, when not used as house, were opened towards the streets and hosted shops. Pompeii shops that still exist on the front of the domus from the second century b.C. are amongst the most beautiful that were preserved till our times from the classic world; they were built by a rectangular ground floor space and an upper floor served by a wooden or brick stile, attached to one of the sides of the ground floor. The shops of the roman period, as similar to the ones of the Samnite-Hellenic period, were quite bald and often the upper environment had a balcony. Focus of this study is the Insula 9 of the Regio I, in which several insulas with different appearance can be recognized, as a result of different moments of urbanization (third-second century b.C.); this Regio for its decentralized position was not totally build; the agricultural usage continued being amongst its peculiarities, making this segment of the city unique in the urban landscape of Ancient Pompeii (Helg, 2005). In the rectangular insula 9, oriented perpendicularly to Via dell’Abbondanza, there are several domus, taverns and artisan shops dating approximately from the second century b.C. In the header of the insula that faces Via dell’Abbondanza, one of the most busy streets of the ancient city, there are three house entrances: the house of the Bell’Impluvium (House of the Beautiful Impluvium I.9.1), the house of Successus (I.9.3), and the house of the Cubicoli Floreali or House of the Orchard (I.9.5). Besides the entrance of the three domus, in the facade of the entrance opened to the important commercial street, there were three openings that coincided with the shop (I.9.2 - I.9.4 - I.9.6); the propinquity with a arterial commercial road influenced for sure (as demonstrated by the findings from the site) over the richness of the domus, the three houses preceded by the shops were rich and finely decorated. In the lateral alley on the eastern side of the insula small and slightly decorated houses can be seen, in which prevalently artisanal activities were performed (I. 9.8 - I.9.9 - I.9.10). The other header of the insula is interested by the accesso to the Amarantus house and caupona (I.9.11 - I.9.12) and the House of Cerere (I.9.13), which from the analysis of the findings seems to be the only house of the insula that was exclusively residential. The excavation for this insula were completed about 1951, and unearthed several spaces destined to plants cultivation; the current state of these green areas is degraded and with damages meadows. In the House of the Beautiful Impluvium (I.9.1), that is named after its amazing impluvium coated in mosaic and inlaid with polychrome marbles, the green zone was the peristyle garden. The wide rectangular space was surrounded of the four sides by a brick columned portico, while today the garden is surrounded only on three sides; on the back of the garden there were originally the rooms that faced directly the portico, and the brick pillars are still visible in the underlying basement (Unpeeling Pompeii, 1998). Along the whole perimeter of the garden there is a brickwork gutter to collect rain water, deep enough and coated in opus signium (Ciarallo, 2012). In the House of Successes I. 9.3, that is named after the painting of a child, with a sign that says “Successus”, the structure of the garden/ peristyle is perfectly preserved that in the moment of the excavation showed a white panel that was lost and a niche with floral elements. The garden was delimited with a portico of which two central brickwork columns are visible, on which two semi-pillars are placed with semi-columns to frame the access. On the eastern and western sides three columns of the original portico are visible. In the northern portico the mouthpiece of a lava stone cistern and a travertine patella are still visible. Today the meadow is very damaged (Ciarallo, 2012). In this house the entrance is moved to occupy the facade with a thermopolium and a triclinium on its

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side, so that the position of the fauces, which is usually central, is moved (Helg, 2005). In the House of Orchard I.9.5, a small garden called the xystus is placed behind the tablinium, surrounded on the sides byn brick columns coated, in the lower part, by red stucco. The garden is in a good state of conservation, and it is cultivated as meadow with red borders (Buxus sempervirens) with an oleander tree in the center (Nerium Oleander). Probably in the period before the eruption it was used as an amphorae shop, the garden along the north, east and southern sides presents a gutter to collect rain water.

Image 4: House of the Beautiful Impluvium, Peristyle garden. Image 5: House of the Orchard, Peristile garden.

For the House-Shop I.9.8, Jashemesky mentions the narrow open space placed on the back of the house, supporting the thesis that originally it was used as a garden (Jashemesky, 1993), but analyzing today’s structure the area is not identifiable as a garden (Ciarallo, 2012). In the House with Shop I.9.9 the green space is delimited from a portico on the back of the shop that, judging by the conspicuous number of pigment jars found during the excavation, hosted the boutique of a painter; it can be lead to an xystus, a garden generally located in the covered zone of the peristyle, among the most known shapes of roman gardens. This green space, on an upper level, was delimited by a portico of which nothing remains today. The garden is now bare soil, and along the western side there’s a gutter for rain water collection that is almost buried, in very poor conditions, with two wells on the northern and southern sides. Behind the Amaranths Caupona (I.9.11), formerly destined as viridarium, Jashemsky hypothesizes that there has been a broad open air area for gardening. Today, it is not possible to understand the original asset. In Q. Mestrius Maximus’ Amarantus House (I.9.12), anciently used as xystus, is a garden on the back of the house, preceded by the tablinium; the green space is surrounded on two sides by a portico; brick columns and pillars are united by brickwork plutei. Along the southern and eastern sides of the garden is the gutter for the collection of rain water. The broad and deep masonry canal in opus signum is well preserved. The current status of the garden is bare soil. In the House of Ceres (I.9.13), an ancient xystus has been substituted by a wide green area in the back of the domus, due to the terrain drop the garden is on a higher floor. The green space accessible straight from the entrance 14 shows a wide portico with brick columns on the western side, and the portico is closed by a wall. The garden is currently cultivated as meadow with fruit trees: prunus persica, prunus domestica, ole europea and vitis.

2.2 Vegetation The data of the vegetal findings of the Regio I’s Insula 9 has been extracted by the list of the plant findings at the Laboratory of Applied Researchesof the Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Pompei (Ciarallo, 2004) (Ciarallo, 2012); in the list, the location of the findings is declared, identified following the division of the Ancient City coded by Fiorelli in 1875 that consists of the division of the archaeological site in nine Regiones divided in turn in insulae. According to this division each finding has been identified with the numero of the Region and of the Insula, followed by the civic number. On the base of the elaboration of the cartography (scale 1:2500) of the archaeological excavation published in the Guida Napoli e Dintorni of the TCI, in which the nine Regiones have been classified with the subsequent insulae, the implementation of the data of the plant findings of the Insula 9 Region I have been caried out; in this insula can be found: four domus (Bell’Impluvio, Successus, Cubicoli Floreali, Cerere), two non-coded houses, a Capon (Amarantus Pompeianus) and a Lupanar (Q. Mestrius Maximus). In this housing units vegetal findings have been unveiled (not-wooden parts, pollen, seeds, fruits, pods and leaves) from plants belonging to the following families: Boraginaceae 1 species - Caprifoliaceae 2 species - Cariophyllaceae 4 species – Chenopodiaceae

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4 species - Compositae 3 species - Corylaceae 1 species - Cruciferae 1 species - Dipsacaceae 1 species - Equisetaceae 1 species - Euphorbiaceae 1 species - Fabaceae 1 species - Graminae 9 species – Juglandaceae 1 species - Leguminosae 9 species - Malvaceae 1 species - Oleaceae 1 species – Pinaceae 1 species - Poliganaceae 2 species - Primulaceae 1 species - Punicaceae 1 species - Ranuncolaceae 1 species - Rubiaceae 3 species - Urticaceae 1 species - Violaceae 1 species and Vitaceae 1 species. In order to connect the object/insula to the vegetal data/finding, a GIS has been built to logcally connect the alfa numeric values to cartography in order to recall the data and contextualizing it in a dereferenced map. In this wait is possible to overlap spatially, manage, analyze and integrate logically different sets of data. The capacity of the GIS system to integrate the informative plans of the environmental context allows to verify and assess the correlation between archaeobotanical and environmental data, leading the archaeobotanical research to an environmental determinism capble of managing simultaneously restoration criteria, mechanical, manual and chemical interventions aimed at reclaiming, recovering and restoring the green areas in relation to the biological cycles of the botanic species and to the site’s weather conditions, because it is the knowledge of the local botanic heritage and of the species’ vegetative cycles to determine the efficacy of archaeobotanical restoration in Ancient Pompeii’s green areas. Botanic research has been particularly difficult. First of all, in the ancient world there was no universal nomenclature. The newfound iconography itself has lead historians into error most of the times. Many of the species in the frescos, in fact, were not actually cultivated in Pompeii, which was a small-town after all, but recalled the time’s gardening “latest fashion” from Naples an Rome. So, due to the absence of the Binomial Nomenclature and to the unreliable frescos, the determination of the whole zone’s flora and the characterizing vegetation have been discovered basing on micro and macro plants findings, and also thanks to palynology and to the study of dominant winds. According to the identified species and to the placements that have been found, the conclusion is that Pompeii’s gardens had several functions: in some cases proper farms, for the production of food and textiles, some other times simply an ornamental function and in other cases curative and religious aims; each inhabitant of Pompeii, in fact, used to cultivate a small private pharmacy while some other species were cultivated for sacred rites. The different functions were not translated in a sharp separation of the gardens but lived together harmonically. So great importance was given to the utility of the species without leaving behind the aesthetic aspect. As perfectly explained by Ciarallo, the floral list of the whole Vesuvian territory is an open system that has to be continuously updated. To date, it is made up of 308 species belonging to 194 genres and 64 families. Even thought it is true that the majority of the species that have been found grow in the summer, allowing us to reconstruct basically that seasonal period (we recall that the eruption has happened in August 79 a.D.), it has been surprising to find in the Vesuvian plain several species that are now growing in high altitudes. The punctual description of the vegetation of a specific area, such as an insula, has been carried out only following the unearthing of at least three finds, whether wooden of non-wooden such as pollen, seeds, pods, fruits, leaves. The a latere vegetal finds have been fundamental same as the molds left by roots and the agricultural layouts discovered. Following this premises it has been possible to determine the vegetation of the housing units of the Regio I’s insult 9. Such composition confirms again the multi functionality of the Pompeiian garden and the abundance of species.

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Image 6: Citrus limon L. - House of the Orchard. Image 7: Ficus carica L. - House of the Orchard.

Image 8: Nerium oleander L. - House of the Golden Bracelet.

Image 9: Rosa Galica L. - House of the Orchard.

Conclusions This paper strongly highlights the connection that existed over twenty centuries ago between Pompeii’s inhabitants, their dorms and the public green spaces. This particularity contributes to the Pompeii’s charm that, not having public monuments that can be compared to Rome’s majesty, keeps its small-town implant untouched through its real-life domus that can be gathered by analyzing the domus, in which the green areas have a great importance not only in the gardens but also in the internal frescos; in fact, they frequently depicted vegetal subjects in such an accurate way that their varieties could be defined. In fact, in the paintings that were exhibited in the gardes, not only spontaneous species were depicted, but also the

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crossbreeds selected for their beauty or, in the case of food plants, for the good taste or farming productivity of their fruits. Streets, tombs, fountains, thermal baths, houses, frescos and gardens, vegetable gardens ad public green spaces are places in which strong connection with modern times can be found, starting from people that lived in those areas more that two millenniums ago, and especially to understand the origin of the plants used by the Ancient Pompeii’s inhabitants: analyzing these places doesn’t only mean to gather social and economical life data, but also information regarding the historical panorama of the Vesuvius area. The vegetal findings of the gardens within Pompeii’s walls build up an extraordinary heritage, that testimony on the one hand the unique distribution of the green areas within a 2000 years ago city, and on the other hand supplies information regarding on the re-implant criteria discovered in the course of 250 years of excavation, that have entered restoration history over century. The most important source of information for this paper has been “Gli spazi verdi dell’Antica Pompei” precious and precise work by Annamaria Ciarallo, whom the IBAF/UOS group of the CNR has had the honor of knowing personally and furthermore the possibility of being present in the Applied Research laboratory of which Annamaria was responsible herself. Thank to this study that, on the one hand, has mapped the whole garden’s state-of-the-art within the excavation, and on the other hand it reached interesting discoveries such as the identification amongst the other material in the time’s containers rests of cloves, an spice imported from the East. The study also informs about ancient crops, about the presence of bushes and fruit plants and on the cultivation techniques, highlighting the architectural and ornamental elements that organized these green spaces; it also proposes documents about the romantic vision of the ruins and about the imprint given by Pompeii’s discoveries in the building of the nineteenth and twentieth century gardens. Antonio Niccolini, for instance, designed the Villa Floridiana in Naples with neoclassical shapes and arranged the park according to the criteria of the English pictorial garden, other than decorating in perfect Pompeiian style the coffee house in Villa Lucia. Cairo’s work arrives almost 40 years after the one by the American archaeologist Wilhelmina Feemster Jashemdki, whom studied an catalogued between 1955 an 1970 all was “green” in the excavation and surveys from the Vesuvian archaeological sites. Seeds, leaves, roots, fruits, nothing was unnoticed. And yet that work was uncertain and inaccurate, and it could have mislead the archaeologists from all over the world. The new study, besides describing what came out from the laboratory and universities’ high-tech investigation, corrects and integrates with new elements the state-of-the-art of Ancient Pompeii’s archaeobotanic heritage. The correction of the preceding papers has been made from the palynology analysis that, according to the experts, have allowed to have, in comparison with Jashemski studies, the almost perfect certainty about the intended use of Pompeiian green spaces: garden, vineyards, oil groves. Thank you Annamaria, Science has lost a great source of knowledge wisdom.

Acknowledgements Special thanks to Antonio Verde, for his precious contribution of translation in the English language.

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Bibliographical References

[1] A.A.VV. (1998), J. Berry (a cura di), Unpeeling Pompeii: Studies in region I of Pompeii. Electa 1998. [2] AA.VV Pompei e gli Architetti Francesi dell'Ottocento, catalogo della Mostra organizzata da Institut Français de Naples e dalla Sovrintendenza Archeologica, Macchiaroli, Napoli, 1981, p.205-280 [3] BORGHI, Rachele. L’acqua come ornamento nella domus pompeiana: documentazione archeologica e fonti letterarie in Architettura e Pianificazione nell’Italia Antica a cura di Quilici L. e Quilici Gigli S.,Erma di Bretschneider, Roma,1997, p.37-50. [4] CAPASSO Bartolommeo. Napoli greco-romana, Berisio. Napoli,1905, p.104. [5] CIARALLO Annamaria. Flora pompeiana Erma di Bretschneider, Roma, 2004, p. 111-117. [6] CIARALLO Annamaria. Gli spazi verdi dell’Antica Pompei, Aracne Roma, 2012, p.399-402. [7] CIARALLO Annamaria. Pompei verde, Electa Napoli,2006, p.17-36. [8] CIARALLO Annamaria. Verde pompeiano, Electa Roma, 2001. [9] CIRILLO Clelia. La lettura dell’isolato semplice del Centro Antico di Napoli, in Storia, Architettura e tecnologia dell’insula 34 del decumanus major a cura di R. Iovino, Giannini, Napoli,1991, p.169 -191. [10] CONTICELLO Baldassare. Sull’evoluzione del giardino nell’età classica in Rivista di Studi pompeiani (1993-94) VI, [1] Roma, 1994 p.7-13. [11] FRANCIOSI Vincenzo. Pompei: lo sviluppo urbanistico in Appolline Project Vol.1 Studies on Vesuvius North slope and the bay of Naples a curadi G.F De Simone, R.T. Macfarlane, Herder, Roma, 2009, p.7-13. [12] HELG Riccardo. Abitazioni atipiche a Pompei: le regiones I e II in La forma della città e del territorio, vol. 2 a cura di L. Quilici e S. Quilici Gigli, Erma di Bretschneider, Roma, 2005 p.147-168. [13] JASHEMSKY Wilhelmina. The gardens of Pompeii, Herculaneum and the villas destroyed by Vesuvius, Aristide D. Caratzas Pub New Rochelle, 1979. [14] LA ROCCA Eugenio. et alii Guida Archeologica Pompei, Mondadori, Milano, 2002. [15] MAGGI Giuseppe. L’evolversi degli studi sugli impianti delle città vesuviane in Ercolano,1738-1988, 250 anni di ricerca archeologica: atti del Convegno a cura di L. Franchi Dell’Orto, Erma di Bretschneider, Roma 1993, p.259-263. [16] MARINI Luigi. Delle parti delle case urbane secondo il costume italico in L’Architettura di Vitruvio - Vol. II, Marini, Roma,1837, p.12-18. [17] MONESTIROLI Antonio. L’Architettura della realtà, Clup, Milano,1979. [18] NAPPO Salvatore Ciro. Storia dello scavo in le Guide di Archeo n°2/2004, De Agostini, Milano, 2004. [19] NIBBY Antonio. Roma nell’anno MDXCCCXXXVIII, Tipografie delle Belle Arti, Roma, 1839.

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