Pompeii (Italy). “To preserve or to enhance? Public or private?” This is the haunting refrain sung in every tone in the Italian public debate on cultural and artistic heritage. It was sung once again this summer. In the midst of the summer torpor, all the media repeated the same news in chorus: the singer Madonna was going to celebrate her 66th birthday at the archaeological park of Pompeii. A “mega-party” with as its highlight a concert to which she would have regaled her 500 guests in the middle of the ancient amphitheater privatized for the occasion.
The denials of the management of the archaeological park have proved quite useless in calming the controversy whose conductor could only be Tomaso Montanari. The pen of the daily The Daily Fattowho revealed that Madonna was going to celebrate her birthday in Pompeii, signed a violent editorial. “Heritage for the elites?” questioned the title of a text which castigated “ the prostitution of our stones and therefore of our soul to allow the rich and powerful to have fun in contempt of the work of those who try to preserve cultural property.” He thus demanded that the Minister of Culture, Gennaro Sangiuliano, accused of following the example of his predecessor Dario Franceschini, a herald of the promotion of heritage, submit to the most complete transparency on this event.
The director of the archaeological park, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, took charge. After the site was closed to the public, he accompanied the singer on a private visit that was not marked by a mega concert but was punctuated by “artistic performances” and which ended with a “refreshment at the end of the course” inside the Teatro Grande for the handful of guests alongside the singer. During her visit, she met a group of young people from the “Sogno di Volare” project. A theater project linked to the site of Pompeii, now in its fourth edition, involving about 300 teenagers and children from the Naples area. Madonna donated €250,000, the equivalent of her annual budget.
“It’s not a star who privatized an archaeological park, Gabriel Zuchtriegel responded to his detractors. She put the general interest at the center of her trip by supporting a project that is essential for local youth. Preserving heritage cannot only be about closing it and prohibiting access. Active preservation exists. It is the one that involves the community and creates synergies. This is what Madonna did.
Two new discoveries of victims of the 79 eruption
Pompeii. During the excavations of Regio IX Insula 10 in Pompeii, two skeletons were discovered, those of a man and a woman, victims of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. The woman, found lying on a bed, has gold and silver jewelry next to her, while the man was lying at the foot of the bed. Archaeologists were able to reconstruct the scene: the two inhabitants, who had taken refuge in a small room, succumbed to the pyroclastic flows after being trapped by volcanic debris. These discoveries offer new perspectives on the daily life of the ancient Pompeians.
