Gli scavi ed i restauri di Amedeo Maiuri. Ercolano e l'esperimento di una città museo.

Roman Herculaneum, buried under nearly 20 m of volcanic remains from the Vesuvian eruption of 79 AD, was investigated during the Bourbon epoch by means of underground passages excavated betweeen 1738 and 1780. Excavations were started again only in 1828, when Amedeo Maiuri first began digging under the open sky. Due to the objective difficulties of the work, only a small part of the ancient city was unearthed. The situation remained unchanged until 1927, when Amedeo Maiuri put into practice a systematic extensive excavation plan and the restoration of the buildings of the ancient city. This work was continued until Maiuri retired in 1961. By using a staff almost entirely from the Soprintendenza, Maiuri was able to create a complete team that allowed him to face all the phases af the work, from excavation to restoration, up to the on the spot exhibition of the main discoveries. The city thus gradually became a kid of open-air museum in which both art-works and findings of every-day life were contextualized. Yet as years went by, the damages caused by variations in weather and athmospheric conditions, the maintenance costs of the showcases. the risks of theft. also linked to the development of mass tourism, gradually forced the administration to close the findings in the store rooms and to dismantle the showcases, and this audacious experiment of a city-museum was soon forgotten.