Pompeii

This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design. Pompeii opens as a compact companion for travelers drawn to art, history, and the strange intimacy of ruined places. Set against the beauty of the Bay of Naples, it presents Vesuvius as both a scenic landmark and a force of terror, recalling the eruption of 1872 as a modern echo of the catastrophe that destroyed the city. From there, the book recreates A.D. 79 in eyewitness detail, using Pliny the Younger's account to evoke ash, darkness, panic, and the sudden collapse of ordinary life. It then follows Pompeii's long burial and rediscovery: the city was not frozen in an amphitheatre myth, but lost beneath volcanic layers, with plaster casts preserving the shapes of victims and objects. The narrative traces the history of excavation from careless treasure-hunting to the more scientific methods of Giuseppe Fiorelli, and explains why preservation in place became essential. Beneath stucco and rebuilding, Pompeii emerges as a layered city of Oscan, Samnite, and Roman phases, with streets, houses, inscriptions, wall paintings, sculptures, and household treasures revealing a vivid, artistic civilization.