GUIDO CALZA (1888-1946)
English translation of: Paola Olivanti, "Guido Calza", Dizionario biografico dei Soprintendenti Archeologi (1904-1974), Papadopoulos J. (ed.), Bologna 2012, 160-166.
With his wife Raissa in the thermopolium on Via di Diana.
Born in Milan on 21 April 1888 from Arturo and Teresa Bedolo, he graduated in Rome in 1911 with a thesis on the Roman conquest of Crete, written under the guidance of Giulio Beloch. During his studies at the Roman university, Calza followed, among others, the courses of Emanuele Loewy, Orazio Marucchi and Dante Vaglieri. It was precisely under the guidance of the latter that Calza, following a regular competition, took up service at the Direction of the excavations of Ostia Antica (at the time dependent on the Royal Superintendency for Antiquities of Rome) as Inspector of Antiquities (1912). At the Direction of the Excavations of Ostia Antica, which became Superintendency for Antiquities of Rome III in 1939, Calza covered all the stages of his career within the Administration of Antiquities and Fine Arts, until obtaining, in 1939, the degree of II class Superintendent.
After the premature death of Vaglieri (December 1913), Calza remained in service at the same office, under the direction of Angelo Pasqui (1914) and then of Roberto Paribeni, until the end of 1923.
In these years, after acquitting to military obligations (1916-1918, including one year of temporary leave "to remain available to the Administration of Antiquities and Fine Arts of Rome"), he served at the office of Fine Arts in Trieste (1919). He obtained his free teaching in Epigraphy and Roman antiquities at the University of Rome (1922) and was promoted to the rank of Chief Inspector (1923). His main scientific commitment was to complete and perfect the program outlined by Vaglieri in 1912, which indicated as a primary necessity the excavation in depth as well as in extension, to recover, in addition to the imperial buildings, even the most ancient phases of history of the city (D. Vaglieri, Introduction, in L. Paschetto, Ostia Roman colony. History and monuments, Rome 1912). In this period (1914) Calza established his residence in ancient Ostia and for this reason works of adaptation were authorized in three rooms of the Castle of Julius II, in which he will live against payment of a regular rent.
In the posthumous volume on Ostian topography (1953), Calza illustrates the objectives of his first years at the Excavations of Ostia: "the enlargement of the excavation of the imperial city, taking advantage of every clue and any area favorable for exploration of the subsoil in order to add to a broader vision of imperial monuments a broader knowledge of republican remains; the search for the ancient boundaries of the imperial city and the republican city still unknown; solving the problem of the origins of Ostia by finding the traces of the ancient foundation" (p. 37). The completion by the Administration of the expropriation practice for the acquisition of the land owned by the Aldobrandini family on which part of the ancient city rested (1917) was decisive for the realization of this ambitious program.
Always fighting with inadequate funding (according to him, small compared to those paid for the Roman Forum and Pompeii, which in the years immediately preceding the First World War absorbed most of the financial resources destined for archaeological investigations), Calza therefore at first conducted his research in the wake of his predecessor, defending his work and method from the attacks of those who would have liked different and above all more immediate results from the excavations of Ostia Antica, especially in relation to the knowledge of topography and urban development of the city and who looked with some skepticism at the program started by Vaglieri, which instead aimed at a "continued and methodical exploration of the city, studying and reintegrating its history and life, both as regards its architectural organism and inasmuch as it is a social organism", but which in ten years "has not added a line to the texts of Servius and Florus" (Calza 1916, Scavo e sistemazione).
From this moment on, and for the next thirty years, the professional story of Calza will be identified with the history of the excavations of Ostia.
Despite the difficulties caused by the wartime events, the activity of Calza, assisted by the designer Italo Gismondi and soprastante Raffaele Finelli, continued without interruption, giving life to some of the most fruitful lines of research in the field of Roman archeology, placing Ostia Antica at the center of the cultural debate and himself at the center of a network of relationships with colleagues and scholars that will last, increased, until his death. The excavation of the so-called House of Diana and the subsequent reconstructive restoration of the building preserved up to the first floor, carried out by Gismondi on the basis of the fragments of collapsed masonry found in the excavation of the road on which the building rests, offered Calza the opportunity to start the study of a building and residential typology, the insula (a multi-storey building, with several apartments probably rented and premises used for commercial activities on the ground floor), until then absolutely unknown for the Roman imperial age. These are the years in which other research directions also start, which will prove to be decisive for understanding the history of the ancient city: the reconstruction of the theater; questions on chronological seriation and on the function of the Square of the Corporations with the temple in the center; the discovery of the Grandi Horrea, which will lead to formulating a series of new considerations on warehouses and in general on goods storage facilities. In 1923 Calza had completed the cataloging of the objects exhibited in the Antiquarium, set up by Vaglieri in the halls of the Castle of Julius II inside the Renaissance village of Ostia Antica and in 1925 he published Ostia. Historical-monumental guide, accompanied by a plan drawn by Gismondi, which forms the basis for all subsequent updates.
Appointed Director of the excavations of Ostia Antica in December 1923, Calza completed the investigations already started during the direction of Paribeni, also starting the excavation of the Terme del Foro, the Horrea Epagathiana, the building complex consisting of the Caseggiato del Serapide and the Terme dei Sette Sapienti, of the necropolis of via Laurentina, in addition to the delimitation of the so-called Castrum and, outside Ostia, investigations in the necropolis of Isola Sacra. The wall circuit, already excavated by Vaglieri in the western section near Porta Romana, was brought to light throughout its perimeter.
The institutional activity of Inspector first and then Director was constantly joined by that of scientific disseminator of the results obtained during the investigations, through timely reports sent to the editorial staff of "News from the Excavations (Notizie Scavi)" starting from 1914, in addition to a large number of articles on specific topics, as can be seen from the rich bibliography at the bottom.
In 1935 the Minister for National Education, Giuseppe Bottai, proposed to Mussolini to organize the 1942 Universal Exposition in Rome. The Duce, who had already been interested in the Ostia affairs by attending the inauguration of the Museum in 1934, accepted the proposal, seeing in the "resurrection" of ancient Ostia the possibility of recreating the image of a prosperous Roman city of the imperial age, according to the ideological schemes of Fascism. The idea of the Universal Exposition, to be held in a specially built neighborhood, the EUR, responded to the dual need to celebrate the new condition of Italy as an imperial nation, in the aftermath of the war in Ethiopia (1936) and the 20th anniversary of the fascist revolution. For the occasion, an Autonomous Body was set up to manage the project. Among the main purposes of the initiative was the construction of stable buildings, infrastructures, public services and green areas capable of constituting, once the Exhibition is over, the nucleus of expansion of Rome towards the sea. In this context it is evident that the recovery of Ostia Antica was of fundamental importance, both for reasons related to exploitation in the tourist sense, and for the ideological suggestions it proposed. As is known, due to the events of the war, the Universal Exposition in Rome was never held.
In 1937 Calza presented the project of intervention on the Ostia Antica area to the Entity for the Universal Exposition, illustrated by a plan by I. Gismondi. Including all ancillary works (lawn arrangement, trees, gardens), the cost estimate, amounting to 10,500,000 lire, was attached. Calza planned a large sum in his project to be allocated to the restoration and arrangement of the area, in order to make it usable for visitors. The amount requested was fully financed and the first funds were available in March 1938. The advertising campaign supported by the Government and the Autonomous Body for the Universal Exposition immediately began to place Ostia at the center of attention both in the political world and in the cultural debate. The Propaganda Office of the Authority distributed outlines for articles on Ostia and also disseminated a document on the "Discipline of the journalistic propaganda work for the excavations of Ostia", dated between February and March 1938. Calza's satisfaction for the inclusion of Ostia Antica in the E42 project is reflected in various writings published between 1937 and 1939, as well as by a large series of articles published in the newspapers of the time. The opportunity was truly unique: regardless of the leading role that Ostia came to play, it was finally possible to return to hoping for adequate financial means.
The program envisaged not the total discovery of Ostia, which would have been impossible in the space of just four years, but the greater enhancement of the ancient city by highlighting an area of about 18 hectares of land, that is to say more than what had been put in light in the 29 years from 1909 to 1938. The excavation of this area led to: "the joining of all partially discovered ruins, except the so-called Imperial Palace; the entire discovery of the two main arteries of the city, the Decumanus Maximus from Porta Romana to Porta Marina, and the Cardo Maximus from Porta Laurentina to the Tiber, with the adjacent buildings; the exploration of Ostia not only on the northern side from the Decumanus to the Tiber, as had been practiced so far; but also on the southern side towards the walls, in an area that is still entirely unknown, consequently reaching the limits of the city both on the side of the sea (west) and on the side of Laurentum (south) in order to obtain the most complete topographical knowledge; the continuation, where it was possible, of the exploration of the subsoil for the knowledge of the republican city" (Calza 1953, p. 38).
The area intended for excavation, between the axis consisting of via Epagathiana and its extension towards the Decumanus (via del Pomerio) to the east and the ancient coast line to the west, was divided into four lots, the excavation of which was contracted out to two firms: this system obviously allowed simultaneous intervention on different fronts and therefore greater speed of the works which, given the limited time available, were obviously carried out at very high rates. Flanked by Italo Gismondi, Giovanni Becatti, Raissa De Chirico and, until 1939, by Herbert Bloch, Calza found himself coordinating a daily average of 150 workers located on different excavation fronts. In just four years the surface of the ancient city came out doubled, so as to reach about 34 hectares of the 50 that are estimated to have been built in ancient times.
Already in September 1938 Calza could present, in a short essay distributed to the participants in the Augustan Conference organized by the Institute of Roman Studies, the first brilliant results of his enterprise which, as he himself pointed out, pursues "both the scientific and cultural purposes which are expected from a broader knowledge of the city, and the aesthetic and touristic purposes which with the almost total vision of Ostia can be achieved within the framework of the Universal Exposition of Rome".
The intense technical and managerial work did not prevent Calza from continuing his dissemination activity, briefly illustrating the new discoveries, but also by deepening themes dear to him on the Roman building typologies (Ostian houses with porticoed courtyard, 1941). In 1940 the important volume on the discovery and excavation of the necropolis of the Holy Island (Isola Sacra) also came to light.
The excavations for the E42 were suspended on January 1, 1944; already in the previous year the excavations of Ostia had been evacuated and Calza had had to face the problem of the protection of the works of art: in the photographic archive of the Ostian Superintendency shots are preserved relating to the arrangement of a group of sculptures protected with bags of sand, while the photographic plates of the Archive were delivered, packaged in thirty boxes, to the Superintendence for Antiquities of southern Etruria. At the end of the war Calza resumed the activities on the Ostian soil, carrying out, once again with the collaboration of Gismondi, the expansion project of the Museum, which was inaugurated in June 1945, the year in which he also obtained the assignment of Superintendent of the Antiquities of the Forum and Palatine Hill, as successor to Alfonso Bartoli.
At the end of the intense and fruitful excavation campaign of the years 1938-1942 the problem of the scientific edition of the rich and complex results presented itself and Calza had already prepared a work plan that included a series of volumes on the Ostian monuments divided by classes and types, with a first volume dedicated to the topography of the city, from its oldest to the most recent phases, commenting on the new general plan. This volume, of which Calza had left in manuscript the entire part relating to the archaic and republican phases of the city, was completed by his collaborators as regards the imperial phases (G. Becatti), the study of building techniques (I. Gismondi), the comments on the brick stamps (H. Bloch) the observations on geology (G. de Angelis D'Ossat) and came out posthumously in 1953. In it, still essential for those approaching the studies on Ostia romana, came together in a more or less succinct manner all of Calza's previous studies.
During the many years spent in service at the Directorate first, then the Superintendency of Ostia, Calza has always had a particular eye for the efficiency of the office, urging on several occasions the Ministry in order to obtain funds for all the adaptation works that were necessary from time to time.
Although linked to the excavations of Ostia, these were not the only place to see Calza engaged as an archaeologist in the field. In the years of his military service, in fact, he dealt with the antiquities of Venezia Giulia (1919); together with Gismondi and Becatti he followed the excavation and restoration works of Leptis, Sabratha and Cyrene (1940).
Numerous were the honors obtained and memberships as an effective member of Italian and foreign cultural institutes: Knight of the Crown of Italy (1920); Cross of Commander of the Crown of Italy (1933); Second Degree of Merit with a Silver Medal from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1942); corresponding member of the German Archaeological Institute since 1925, effective since 1928.
Calza died on April 17, 1946; he is buried in the chapel of S. Ercolano, at the cemetery of Ostia Antica, next to his master Dante Vaglieri. On his grave is written: ubi vixit, vivet ["May he live where he lived"].
Photo credits: Parco Archeologico di Ostia.