Digging among the papers

The exhibit reconstructs the archaeological events in the Kingdom of Naples; from the mid-1700s up to the years of Napoleon's rule (1806-1815), the theme of antiquity and its political significance crossed the lives of small and large personalities. Through the documents of the Banco di Napoli Historical Archive we reconstruct the stories of these characters, from the fortunate and stubborn discovery of Herculaneum by Rocco Gioacchino Alcubierre, passing through the engraver activity of Giuseppe Aloja, aimed at telling "through images "(the engravings) the archaeological discoveries (The passenger artist), up to the realization of the project of a city museum capable of hosting antiquities (The time of the empire) with the first director Michele Arditi and the figure of the archaeologist Marcello Venuti ( The empty rooms).

Payment that the engineer Gioacchino Alcubierre receives as compensation for the expenses he incurred to make horse-drawn carriages and for racehorses to visit the excavations of Resina, Torre Annunziata, Civita and Gragnano.

The narration is inspired by a payment intended to accomodate the travel expenses of Giuseppe Antonio Aloja, an engraver at the service of the Borboni crown and author of some of the most beautiful branches of the Antiquities of Herculaneum. The story, told by the coachman in charge of leading Aloja to the excavations, is a brief immersion in the climate of enthusiasm, secret and naive attraction that the first archaeological excavations unleashed in Naples in the first half of the 18th century.

Giuseppe Aloja was the oldest member and probably the progenitor of a family that was the protagonist of the Neapolitan engraving activity of the 18th and 19th centuries. He was actively and immediately involved in the project of the principiate in 1757 and dedicated by the Bourbon dynasty to the representation of Herculaneum antiquities; the Antiquities of Herculaneum Exposed. In 1759 he created an impressive view of the city of Naples, engraved on eight copper plates and which remains his best known work.

Payment of two hundred and sixty-five ducats and 4.8 tarì that Salvatore Caruso arranged for the bookseller Giulio Giannini for the binding of some tomes commissioned by the director of the Royal Printer.

With the definition of the French Decade it is customary to identify that period, between 30 March 1806 and 20 May 1815, in which Giuseppe Bonaparte and Gioacchino Murat alternated on the throne of Naples. The French occupation of 1806 brought the continental part of the Kingdom (Sicily remained in the hands of the Borboni dynasty) in the Napoleonic imperial system and involved, especially in the Murattian period (1808-1815), the adoption of a series of government apparatuses and of reforms of the new conception of the state matured in France after the French Revolution (1789).

Two documents from the Banco di San Giacomo illustrate some moments of the Neapolitan stay of the antiquarian and archaeologist Marcello Venuti. The two payments, extinguished between August and September 1736, highlight the transfer of the Cavalier Venuti from a house in Via San Mandato to a house located outside the Porta di Chiaia. Furthermore, one of these payments confirms the relationship between Marcello Venuti and the Pisan order of the Knights of Santo Stefano, suggesting an alternation between one of the "balì" of the order and the Cortonese antiquarian in the house of San Mandato. These exquisitely private aspects are the pretext for narrating, against the backdrop of an ordinary story of rentals and removals, the great contribution made by the Cortonese archaeologist to the discovery and deepening of the ancient in the early years of the reign of Carlo III.

Payment order of Cavalier Marcello Venuti to Cavalier Vincenzo de Bonis for the resolution of the judicial controversy concerning the furniture belonging to the balì of the Order of Santo Stefano Gaetano Balduino.