The exhibition Pompeii and Santorini. Eternity in one day is edited by Massimo Osanna, Director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii and by Demetrios Athanasoulis, Director of the Ephoria of Cycladic Antiquities, with Luigi Gallo and Luana Toniolo.
The exhibition is conceived as a journey through time to discover the two ancient cities, united by an identical purpose and preserved over the millennia by volcanic ashes. More than three hundred objects: statues, frescoes, vases, reliefs, gems, incunabula and paintings, retrace a chronological span of three thousand five hundred years, from the Bronze Age to the present day. An immersive story through the rooms of the Scuderie del Quirinale, where an engaging setting that winds through reconstructions of environments, with everyday objects, video art projections, take the visitor into a timeless update.
The topics addressed deal with various archaeological problems: the examination of the contexts, the use of plaster casts, the analysis of social habits and rituals, the study of economic and cultural connectivity in the ancient Mediterranean.
There are also works by modern and contemporary artists (Micco Spadaro, Turner, Valenciennes, Filippo Palizzi, Arturo Martini, Renato Guttuso, Andy Warhol, Alberto Burri, Richard Long, Antony Gormley, Giuseppe Penone, Francesco Jodice, Damien Hirst, James P Graham , Hans Op de Beeck, Francesco Simeti), which indicate how much the rediscovery of buried cities has nourished the collective imagination, accompanying visitors on a journey between past and present.
"The institutional collaboration between the Archaeological Park of Pompeii and the Ephoria of the Cyclades - he affirms Massimo Osanna - has its natural point of arrival in this exhibition. We wanted to combine the archaeological investigation with the geological reading of volcanic events so as to be able to make the public understand the uniqueness of the state of conservation of the two cities. Of equal importance is the presence on display of some modern and contemporary works, chosen for their evocative power".
"The Ephorate of the Cyclades has decided to implement an outward-facing exhibition policy- he underlines Demetrios Athanasoulis - with exhibitions both in Greece and abroad that aim to promote the monumental heritage of the Cyclades and to make antiquity a source of culture and knowledge, but also of pleasure and quality entertainment. The exhibition at the Scuderie del Quirinale is an expression of this vision and, by bringing materials from the prehistoric city of Akrotiri outside Greece for the first time, it will allow the general public to get to know the face of the "Pompeii" of the prehistoric Aegean".
It will also be an opportunity for school students who will be able to test themselves with workshops on the profession of archaeologist where they will be involved in recognizing the finds from an excavation. The older ones, on the other hand, will be able to venture on a literary tour of the exhibition accompanied by the words of writers and philosophers from antiquity to the twentieth century. Simultaneously with the exhibition, a series of appointments at Teatro argentina in Rome conducted by archaeologists, art historians, intellectuals and journalists to investigate the eruptive phenomenon from a scientific, geological and social point of view as well as proposing a sort of virtual walk inside the exhibition halls.
