Luigi Viola

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

Luigi Viola (* 1851 in Galatina , † 1924 in Taranto ) was an Italian archaeologist .

Life

After graduating in Latin and Greek from the University of Naples , he first taught at the grammar school ( 1878 ) in Maddaloni ( province of Caserta ), then passed an archaeological competition that was to inspire him for life and that brought him to Greece and Asia Minor . Together with French, German and English archaeologists, he took part in the discoveries of important ruins in the Troas , Pergamon , Tiryns , Thebes , Argos and Mycenae .

Back in Naples, he arranged the National Archaeological Museum, took part in excavations in Pompeii and was commissioned to explore archaeological zones in Calabria . In 1880 he was appointed archaeological inspector and the then General Director of Antiquity, Giuseppe Fiorelli , sent him to Taranto to undertake the first archaeological excavations of the pre-Hellenic period in Borgo Nuovo. In 1887 he founded the National Archaeological Museum and became its director. His sources were the traditions of classical writers, which he compared with the results of more modern technical investigations. By researching the monuments and ancient coins, he reconstructed the history of Taranto , the main trading post of Magna Graecia . His wish to turn the museum into a museum of Magna Graecia, however, remained unfulfilled.

It is to him that we owe the discovery of the massive ring wall of Tarento from the Greek era and the topographical reconstruction of the ancient city. Through his experience and diligence as an archaeologist, he was able to assemble some decomposed bronze pieces that prove the knowledge of Taranto in Roman times.

He married one of the daughters of the Cacace family from Taranto, turned away from archeology, devoted himself to politics and later became mayor of the city. He spent the last years of his life in his country house, where he discovered a small sanctuary, the Crypt of the Savior .