Strumenti inventariali per il riordino della Collezione degli Affreschi del Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli

The Collection of Wall Paintings at the National Museum of Naples is fundamental for the study of Roman wall painting. With its over two thousand documents, chiefly coming from Vesuvian sites, it offers an extraordinary sampling of the decorative and figurative elements of Late Republican and First Imperial Roman wall painting. The informational value of this exceptional sample is however seriously limited by the way the collection was created during the 700's and 800's, when excavations were aimed only at the recovery of valuable objects. Attention paid to the archaeological contexts was scarce or next to nothing, and the paintings often arrived at the Museum with a unique, generic indication of their origin. The preservation history itself of those findings ended up worsening the situation in many cases, causing dispersions and superimposition of data. Therefore, a systematic and detailed review of the documentary sources is essential, starting from the 2inventory series", After a ten-year commitment to the "inventory philology" and to the "warehouse excavations", V. Sampaolo is now bringing this initiative to a conclusion. The results of this work can represent one of the bases for the systematic study of Herculaneum wall paintings, which are up to now still missing. The Department of Archaeology of the University of Bologna has begun the study of those paintings in the "Herculaneum Project", in strict collaboration with the Soprintendenze Archeologiche of Pompeii and Naples.