Magna Graecia

The collection comprises a significant amount of materials discovered during the excavations carried out in the southernmost regions of the Bourbon Kingdom, ancient Magna Graecia, or which came to the Naples museum, especially in the nineteenth century, either through the acquisition or donation of antiquarian collections; of these, one of the most important and largest is the Santangelo Collection.

History and formationThe collection contains a significant part of the material found in the excavations carried out in the southernmost regions of the Bourbon Kingdom which, in antiquity, corresponded to the area of Magna Graecia. Most of the objects reached the museum through purchase or donation; indeed, not many excavations were promoted directly by the Bourbon government both because attention in this period was focused on Pompeii and because of the significant distances of some of the sites from the capital. Many of the materials, taken from unauthorised excavations, thus ended up on the flourishing antiques market and now form an important part of the collections of the main European and American museums. A significant contributing factor to the dispersal of the archaeological heritage of Magna Graecia was the passion for “Etruscan vases” (actually Attic and Greek vases) which became famous due to the extensive collection of antiquities belonging to Sir William Hamilton, published in the catalogue of D’Hancarville. Few finds entered the museum during the eighteenth century but they began to increase in number during the first decades of the nineteenth century as a result of the most important discoveries in the ancient sites of Paestum, Anzi, Armento, Ruvo, Canusium and Gnathia In the central part of the nineteenth century and for a short period afterwards, the main collections of the museum were assembled through a carefully targeted policy of purchases from private collections: the Apulian vases from Ruvo and Canosa, the jewellery from Taranto found in the same tombs, the figurative pottery, the bronze armour, the funerary paintings, and the coins and inscriptions. The latter are on display in specific sections. One of the main collections is the Santangelo collection which was formed during the late eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century by a family that had an important role in the Bourbon administration; the collection was added to the museum collections after the unification of Italy thanks to the work of Giuseppe Fiorelli, aided by the financial assistance of Naples City Council. The fact that most of the objects came from collections and the lack of properly documented ancient sites has prevented the formation of a section of the museum that is dedicated to the civilisation of Magna Graecia; however, the Neapolitan collections are still of great interest, both due to the artistic importance of some of the exhibits and because they are the result of the first scientific approach to the history of Magna Graecia. RouteThe museum display begins with cork models of the temples of Paestum, made between 1805 and 1822, followed by the archaeological material from Lucania, with Poseidonia - Paestum. Of the figurative vases, one example that stands out is the lekythos showing Hercules in the garden of the Hesperides, signed by the potter from Paestum, Assteas. There are also fascinating examples of bronze armour from the second half of the fourth century BC. Besides Paestum, other sites from ancient Lucania are also represented; one of these is Elea, with a marble votive stele in the form of a sacellum dating to the late sixth century BC; another is Armento, with the splendid Apulian crater depicting the death of Meleagrus, from the school of the Licurgus painter (360 - 340 BC); indeed, there is a series of important red figure vases of Lucanian production, including the crater depicting the madness of Licurgus by the Brooklyn – Budapest painter; the site of Metapontum has produced a group of architectural terracottas which still preserve traces of the original rich polychrome, found in the excavations carried out in the area of the temple of Apollo Likeos. Ancient Bruttium, which corresponds to the present-day region of Calabria, is represented by material from Locri and Medma and from some little known and poorly documented coin hoards. At Locri excavations carried out “on behalf of the royal authorities” were begun in 1790; however, it was with the excavations conducted by Paolo Orsi between 1889 and 1890 in the in Parapezza district, outside the city walls, that thousands of votive objects ended up in the Naples museum, especially clay figurines, Corinthian pottery and miniature vases. The region that made the biggest contribution to the museum collections is Apulia. The material from Taranto consists of chance finds found in the extensive area of the Mar Piccolo known as “Fondo Giovinazzi” and other areas. These finds consist of thousands of votive terracottas made using moulds and intended as offerings in temples or grave goods in tombs. Ruvo, the ancient town of Peucetia, reached the height of its prosperity in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. Despite the intensive ad hoc, illegal excavations undertaken by local people (including Michele and Salvatore Fenicia, canon Ficco, the chemist Cervone, the lawyer Jatta), the most important material ended up in the collections of inhabitants of the town, saving some of the finds from being dispersed on the antiques market. The collection that belonged to canon Ficco, which consisted of 250 objects including armour, jewellery and figurative vases and was purchased by the museum, included six painted stone slabs dating to the end of the fifth century and the mid fourth century BC; the slabs came from a chamber tomb that was discovered in 1833 on land that belonged to the cleric. Among the vases found in the Tomb “of the Amazon vase” discovered in 1834 and attributed to an Apulian workshop, to the Darius Painter or his school (340 - 330 BC) is the splendid colossal crater with a battle scene between Greeks and Persians, two Panathenaic amphorae, one with a scene of combat between a Greek and a Persian, the other with a depiction of the madness of Licurgus, and a deinos with a chariot race. Together with the vases, an extremely important part of the nineteenth century trade in antiquities in Ruvo consisted of jewellery and armour. Among the archaic jewels, probably made by Etruscan workshops in Campania, there is a splendid golden necklace with pendent protomes of Silenus, acorns and lotus flowers, and a pair of golden fibulae with pendants in the shape of pomegranates. The armour, which can be dated to between the second half of the sixth century and the early fifth century BC, includes several parts of horse harness fittings. The most important evidence from the Messapian town of Gnathia consists of fresco fragments from a tomb of the fourth-third century BC with depictions of a horse and rider, a sword hanging from a nail, a gorgoneion and a shield with a gorgon protome in the centre. Two bell craters come from the same tomb and are decorated in the so-called “Gnathia style”, a special class of ceramics distinguished by the use of a shiny black slip that covers the surface of the vase on which details are overpainted in white, yellow and violet to form small compositions taken from the Dionysia nrepertoire. The site of Canosium is documented by some of the richest grave assemblages of the monumental hypogea situated along the roads outside the city. Discovered in 1851, the so-called “Tomb of the Darius Painter” yielded an extraordinary collection of figurative vases and bronze armour. In one of the three Lagrasta tombs, so-called because of the name of the owner of the land on which it was discovered, two colossal Apulian red figure pateras by the White Saccos-Chariot group painter (ca. 325 - 300 BC) were found (the name derives from the chariot pulled by horses depicted in the centre of the vase), four oinochoai, two flat dishes made of blown glass and one made of millefiori glass of the third-second century BC, as well as several jewels. The most important collection containing finds from Magna Graecia, which arrived in the museum in 1866, was the one that was begun in the late eighteenth century by the marchese Francesco Santangelo and which was enlarged, due to excavations and acquisitions, by his sons Nicola and Michele, both of whom were, like their father, passionate about art and antiquity. The most important part of the collection consisted of 1,411 vases of all the various classes of figurative and non-figurative pottery made by Attic and Italiot workshops, which were interesting not just because of their quality but also because of the variety and rarity of the forms. The numerous figurative vases, mostly of extremely sophisticated workmanship, represented the chief rarity of the Santangelo Museum. These included the rhytà, Attic and Italiot red figure vases, for example with horse hooves, ram’s heads, lamb’s heads or vases painted with “black man and sea monster” or with “pygmy and crane”. The collection of pottery include several works of great originality and high quality, such as the relief with the depiction of the myth of Actaeon, the severe style female head from Reggio Calabria, and the female statuette in Daedelic style, dated between 650 - 630 BC.