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A family of archaeologists

In 1764 Johann Joachim Winckelmann became "Soprintendente alle Antichità" of Rome. Four years later he was murdered in Trieste, waiting for a ship to take him to Ancona, and from there to Rome. He was succeeded as commissioner of antiquities by Giovanni Battista Visconti, who in 1770 founded the Vatican Museo Clementino, later called Museo Pio-Clementino. His son Ennio Quirino succeeded him and published an extensive catalogue of the museum. He then became curator of antiquities in the Louvre. A second son of Giovanni Battista, Filippo Aurelio, succeeded his brother as commissioner in Rome. He worked with Giuseppe Antonio Guattani, known for his "Monumenti antichi inediti di Roma", in which several finds from Ostia were described and illustrated.



Bust of Ennio Quirino Visconti on the Pincio in Rome.
Image: Wikimedia, Flazaza.

To this renowned family belongs an excavator of Portus and Ostia: Pietro Ercole, a nephew of Ennio Quirino Visconti. As commissioner of antiquities he was active in Portus in the first half of the 19th century. In 1855 he started work in Ostia, especially in the so-called Imperial Palace, the Porta Romana necropolis and the area around the Porta Laurentina. Here he was assisted by his nephew Carlo Ludovico, who wrote most of the publications. The driving force behind the excavations was pope Pius IX - the Vatican owned most of Ostia.

The Viscontis used some 200 prisoners for the work, emprisoned in Civitavecchia, but living in the medieval borgo of Ostia from December to June - from July until November the risk of malaria was too great. Several travellers' account from the 19th century sketch the atmosphere quite well. They can be read in a separate section.

Pietro Ercole and Carlo Ludovico Visconti. Photos: beniculturali.it.

Pietro Ercole Visconti was a friend of Robert Winthrop, an American lawyer and philanthropist and one time Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. In 1860, 1868 and 1875 he showed him around in the Vatican, and they visited the Via Appia and Marmorata, the river harbour of ancient Rome. Below is a letter written by Visconti to Winthrop in 1868 (see Winthrop's recollections of Baron Visconti on archive.org).

LETTER FROM BARON VISCONTI TO HON. ROBERT C. WINTHROP, LL.D. [TRANSLATION]

Rome, July 6, 1868.

Sir and Dear Friend:

I have waited, that the announced diploma of my admission to membership in the Antiquarian Society of America, might reach me, in order to thank you at the same time for your letter and for so valuable a distinction, which I am glad and proud to owe to your esteem and your affection. The little volume that I received with your letter above mentioned, has furnished me useful information, as to your constant care for your country's benefit in the line of the arts and antiquities. If an opportunity presents itself to me of procuring any of the monuments which you indicate, I will make the acquisition and will forward them in the manner suggested to me, esteeming myself happy in contributing with you to the endowment of America with monuments that will make illustrious her history with new demonstrations; or with ancient works of art which will reveal her culture and power; towards which object, it is always to be borne in mind, that money, even in vast sums, is always well spent by a people, when they can obtain with it things that will secure national glory and national advantage. The monuments, celebrated for a century in all the world, of the Villa Albani; those destined to a still greater celebrity, collected by prince Torlonia by purchase and by the excavations of Porto, as by many other happy circumstances, would be those that would serve for America.

The country which will have the one or the other collection (what would it be for the country that should unite both !) would be the first for Museums, finding a comparison alone in that of the Vatican. It is true that the collection Albani may amount to 15 millions of francs, and I believe that the other, of Torlonia, may be valued more than double (from 30 to 35 millions); but when one thinks of the sums which have been lavished and are still squandered in arms and war, may we not be permitted to hope that a better judgment will invest a part of those capital sums in adorning life, not in destroying it; in those studies and arts which render peace and security more beautiful, not in those which extinguish and expel them.

How many precious institutions one will then see founded and made perpetual !

Our classical researches are nourished upon these generous conceptions. I am sure that being able to make them prevail in America, — where the means abound to hope for everything, and where sumptuous legacies have sought to found the great supports of letters, — you will sustain principles so in harmony with your own conceptions, and you will do it with that energy which accompanies your intent.

Believe me penetrated with true esteem and true friendship,

Yours from the heart,

VISCONTI

Pius IX was a patron of the arts, and known for his liberal policies. In 1848 Winthrop spoke about pope Pius IX, under whose auspices the excavations in Ostia took place. Winthrop's words must be understood against the background of the "Revolutions of 1848" in Europe. He quotes Vergilius's Georgica.

AN ORATION DELIVERED AT THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT, ON THE OCCASION OF LAYING THE CORNER-STONE OF THE NATIONAL MONUMENT TO WASHINGTON, JULY 4, 1848.

The whole civilized world resounds with American opinions and American principles. Every vale is vocal with them. Every mountain has found a tongue for them.

Sonitum toto Germania coelo
Audiit, et insolitis tremuerunt motibus Alpes.

Everywhere the people are heard calling their rulers to account and holding them to a just responsibility. Everywhere the cry is raised for the elective franchise, the trial by jury, the freedom of the press, written constitutions, representative systems, republican forms. In some cases, most fortunately, the rulers themselves have not escaped some seasonable symptoms of the pervading fervor for freedom, and have nobly anticipated the demands of their subjects. To the sovereign Pontiff of the Roman States, in particular, belongs the honor of having led the way in the great movement of the day, and no American will withhold from him a cordial tribute of respect and admiration for whatever he has done or designed for the regeneration of Italy. Glorious, indeed, on the page of history will be the name of Pius IX., if the rise of another Rome shall be traced to his wise and liberal policy. Yet not less truly glorious, if his own authority should date its decline to his noble refusal to lend his apostolical sanction to a war of conquest.

The work of the Viscontis in Ostia came to an end with the unification of Italy in 1870, when they were excavating in the House of the Millstones. The Vatican was reduced to its current size. In 1880 Pietro Ercole published a catalogue of the Museo Torlonia, a private collection of sculpture collected by the aristocratic Torlonia family. They owned Portus, and many of the works of art were excavated there. Four years later Carlo Ludovico published photos of the entire collection.

There was no museum in Ostia yet, and the finds were taken to the Museo Lateranense in Rome, from where they were transferred to the Vatican, to the Museo Gregoriano Profano, around 1960.

A page from L'Illustration, Journal Universel, 1860, with a description of a tour of Ostia led by Pietro Ercole Visconti.
It includes an illustration of a visit by pope Pius IX, who came to Ostia six times between 1855 and 1866.