Dante Vaglieri

Dante Vaglieri (born May 31, 1864 in Trieste , † December 14, 1913 in Ostia ) was an Italian archaeologist and epigraphist .

Dante Vaglieri, born in Trieste, Austria, first studied Classical Philology and Archeology at the University of Vienna from 1883 under Otto Hirschfeld and Eugen Bormann . From 1885 he studied in Rome with Ettore De Ruggiero , whose daughter he also married. In 1887 he received the Laurea , in 1888 the diploma in Latin epigraphy and Roman antiquity.

In 1893 he was for Latin epigraphy at the University of Rome habilitation , from 1903 taught at the associate professor. He was appointed full professor to the chair in 1910.

Vaglieri had already entered the antiquities administration as a curator in 1892 and was appointed inspector of museums, galleries and excavations in 1897. In 1901 he also represented Giuseppe Gatti in the management of the Museo Nazionale Romano , which he was director from 1903 to 1906. Finally he was appointed director of the excavations on the Palatine Hill in 1906 , a position which he gave up in 1907 due to a bitter dispute with Luigi Pigorini about the findings of the Iron Age hut at the Scalae Caci , the so-called Casa Romuli , in order to deal with the excavation in Ostia To take over Antica .

For the excavations in Ostia, Vaglieri, in addition to his assistant Raffaele Finelli, won the architect Italo Gismondi , who joined the excavation in 1910, and from 1912 his student Guido Calza as inspector. Under the leadership of this team, important buildings, squares and streets in regions I and II of Ostia Antica along the Decumanus were uncovered, including: the theater and parts of the adjacent Piazzale delle Corporazioni ; the Domus di Apuleio and the Quattro Tempietti, called temples of the Republican period ; the barracks of the East Asian fire brigade, known as Caserma dei Vigili , Terme di Nettuno and Via dei Vigili ; the Piccolo Mercato with the remains of the wall of the Castrum. In addition, large parts of the necropolis on the Via Ostiensis were examined. One of the innovations in excavation in Ostia established by Vaglieri was the introduction of photography as a means of documentation. He died during the excavations in Ostia.

Dante Vaglieri was involved in the editing and editing of the Dizionario Epigrafico di Antichità Romane , initiated by De Ruggiero, and the magazine La Cultura . For the Dizionario Epigrafico he also edited numerous entries, among which the article consules in the second volume, published in 1900, stood out and was reprinted as an independent monograph with the title I consoli di Roma antica 1905.

His daughter Laura Veccia Vaglieri (1893–1989) became an orientalist, his daughter Bianca married the archaeologist Renato Bartoccini in 1918 , who had started his studies with Vaglieri. His third daughter Attilia Travaglio Vaglieri (1891–1969) became Italy's first female architect.

Publications (selection)

• I consoli di Roma antica. Tipografia dell'Umbria, Spoleto 1905.
• A proposito degli scavi del Palatino. Reale Accademia dei Lincei, Rome 1908.
• Ostia. Cenni storici e guida. Loescher, Rome 1914 ( digitized version ).

literature

• Filippo Tambroni: Dante Vaglieri. In: Bollettino dell'Associazione archeologica romana , Volume 4, Number 1, 1914, pp. 1-9.
• Paola Olivanti: Dante Vaglieri alla direzione degli scavi di Ostia Antica (1908–1913) (from the documenti dell'Archivio Storico della Soprintendenza di Ostia). In: Christer Bruun, Anna Gallina Zevi (eds.): Ostia e Portus nelle loro relazioni con Roma. Atti del Convegno all'Institutum Romanum Finlandiae, 3 e 4 December 1999 (= Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae. Volume 27). Institutum Romanum Finlandiae, Rome 2002, pp. 271-289 ( online ).
• Massimo De Vico Fallani, Elizabeth J. Shepherd (eds.): Omaggio a Dante Vaglieri (1865-1913) nel centenario della scomparsa. Atti del Convegno, Roma, Fondazione Marco Besso, 21 gennaio 2014. In: Bollettino di Archeologia online , volume 5, number 2, 2014 ( online ).

Web links

• Vaglieri, Dante , Enciclopedia Treccani on-line