Pompeii and the Last Days of the Italian Risorgimento Giuseppe Garibaldi, Alexandre Dumas and Giuseppe Fiorelli in Naples

The article suggests that both the end of the romantic phase of the Risorgimento and the consolidation of the new Italian nation are closely associated with a profound change in the meanings attributed to Mount Vesuvius and the remains of Pompeii. Until 1860 the suggestive power of the ruins of Pompeii evoked a desire to follow the seductive example of the good life in an antique culture. After 1863 the ruins and dead bodies came to be viewed as objects that acquired meaning only by the analyses of professional archaeologists. The author discusses this turning point by comparing the Pompeii of Alexandre Dumas, appointed by Garibaldi as Honorary Director of the Scavi and the Archeological Museum in the fall of 1860, with the Pompeii of Giuseppe Fiorelli, appointed as Director of the Scavi and the Museum by the Italian government in 1863.