Salvatore Aurigemma

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Salvatore Aurigemma (born February 10, 1885 in Monteforte Irpino ; died April 1, 1964 in Rome ) was an Italian classical archaeologist .

Life

education

Salvatore Aurigemma was the son of the merchant Martino Aurigemma and his wife Francesca, née Ortulio. At the age of eight he was placed in the care of his uncle in Rome and attended a Catholic college. He spent the last year of school at a state school, where he met Giorgio Pasquali as a classmate , with whom he remained on friendly terms throughout his life. Aurigemma first studied humanities at the University of Naples , but then continued his studies at the University of Rome , where he received his doctorate in Romance studies from Ettore De Ruggiero in 1906 .

job

In the same year, a scholarship enabled him to continue his studies at the Scuola Archeologica Italiana di Atene, which is currently being founded. There he met the epigraphist Federico Halbherr , who was then head of the Missione Archeologica Italiana di Creta . In 1910 Aurigemma became inspector at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples under Vittorio Spinazzola .

Libya stay

In 1911 he took part in a first expedition to Libya with Halbherr and Francesco Beguinot , a researcher of the Berber languages . Here he opened up a research area that kept him busy. The expedition of 1911 was, however, only of little success because the required excavation permits were missing. The research group therefore moved from the first point of contact in Cyrenaica to Tripolitania . After being drafted in 1912, Aurigemma returned to Libya as a military member and was inspector of the antiquities administration there from 1912 to 1913.

Here he developed an extremely fruitful archaeological research activity with first investigations into the four-sided arch for Marc Aurel and Lucius Verus in Tripoli , with the excavation of the Christian burial ground of Ain Zara , with the securing of the archaeological sites of Leptis Magna and Sabratha as well as the excavation of the Roman villa at Zliten near Tripoli. Aurigemma put together a first collection of finds and objects from the Tripolitania, which formed the core of the Tripoli Museum, opened in 1919 .

Working in Italy

This year Aurigemma returned to Italy to evaluate the finds from the North African years. After a few months in Naples, where he married the daughter Vittorio Spinazzola, he was briefly placed under the directorate for the excavations at the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill in 1920 , but was appointed inspector of the excavations in Pompeii that same year . When the government stopped the excavations in Pompeii in 1923 because of Spinazzola's political opposition to Benito Mussolini , Aurigemma - after a short phase at the Soprintendenza alle antichità of Palermo - was commissioned in 1924 to build the newly created Soprintendenza of the regions Emilia and Romagna , its director he also became.

Here he devoted himself above all to the research and excavation of the necropolis in the Etruscan port city of Spina , discovered in 1922 , which from 1925 onwards under his leadership brought about rich finds, particularly of Greek ceramics . The finds are exhibited in the National Archaeological Museum of Ferrara , also built by Aurigemma , which is housed in the Palazzo Costabili in Ferrara and opened in 1935. In the same year Aurigemma received his habilitation at the University of Bologna . He devoted further investigations in Emilia-Romagna to Forum Popilii , Veleia and Claterna as well as the villa from Theodoric's time in Galeata . He transferred the archaeological area of Marzabotto to a state archaeological park. In 1938 he initiated the restoration of a late antique tower next to the Arch of Augustus in Rimini . However, on the intervention of the citizens of Rimini, Benito Mussolini himself and the responsible minister, the tower was demolished. For Aurigemma, the time in Emilia-Romagna was over.

In 1939 he became soprintendent of the South Etruria region and in 1942 of the Lazio region with its seat in the Museo Nazionale Romano , which he had expanded after the end of the Second World War . In this role he had the Barberine mosaic bought and restored by the state , he saved an important part of the Servian wall from the construction plans for the Stazione Termini and saved the underground basilica of Porta Maggiore from damage that was to be expected from the construction of a railway line . In Lazio, his research on the Villa Hadriana in Tivoli and the restoration of the sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia in Palestrina should be highlighted.

Works

His works on the mosaics and paintings in Tripolitania from 1960 to 1962 and - published posthumously in 1970 - on the arches for Marc Aurel and Lucius Verus in Tripoli are the fruit of his long preoccupation with Roman antiquity in North Africa.

As a collaborator and son-in-law of Vittorio Spinazzola, he published his extensive work on the excavations of Via dell'Abondanza in Pompeii , which was published posthumously in three volumes in 1953 .

Publications (selection)

  • Notie archeologiche sulla Tripolitania . Bertero, Rome 1915.
  • I mosaici di Zliten . Societa editrice d'arte illustrata, Rome 1926 ( Africa italiana . Volume 2).
  • Tripoli e le sue opere d'arte . Alfieri, Rome 1927.
  • The area cemeterialecristiana di Ain Zára presso Tripoli di Barberia . Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, Rome 1932 ( Studi di antichità cristiana . Volume 5).
  • Rimini guida ai più notevoli monumenti romani e al museo archeologico comunale . Cappelli, Bologna 1934.
  • Il Real Museo di Spina in Ferrara. Con una relazione di Carlo Calzecchi sul restauro del Palazzo di Ludovico il Moro . Commune di Ferrara, Ferrara 1936.
  • Velleia . La Libreria dello Stato, Rome 1940.
  • Le terme di Diocleziano e il Museo nazionale romano . La Libreria dello Stato, Rome 1946.
  • La Villa Adriana presso Tivoli . Arti grafiche A. Chicca, Tivoli 1948.
  • as editor: Vittorio Spinazzola: Pompei alla luce degli scavi nuovi di Via dell'Abbondanza . La Libreria dello Stato, Rome 1953.
  • La Basilica sotterranea neopitagorica di Porta Maggiore in Roma . La Libreria dello Stato, Rome 1954.
  • Scavi di Spina . Volume 1: 1. La necropoli di Spina in valle Trebba . "L'Erma" di Bretschneider, Rome 1960.
  • Tripolitania . Two volumes. Istituto poligrafico dello Stato, Rome 1960–1962.
  • Villa Adriana . Istituto poligrafico dello stato, Rome 1961.
  • I monumenti della necropoli romana di Sarsina . Casa dei Crescenzi, Rome 1963.
  • L'Arco quadrifronte di Marco Aurelio e di Lucio Vero in Tripoli. Edited by Antonino Di Vita. Department of Antiquities, Tripoli 1970.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Aurigemma, Salvatore
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian classical archaeologist
DATE OF BIRTH February 10, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Monteforte Irpino
DATE OF DEATH April 1, 1964
Place of death Rome