I spent a week in Naples in January 2020, and on a sunny winter’s day, I took the train to Pompeii, the ancient Roman city that was destroyed by a cataclysmic eruption of the volcanic mountain of Vesuvius in AD 79

The eruption lasted for two days and killed at least 1,150 of the inhabitants because that number of remains have been discovered in the layers of ash that suffocated what had been a prosperous city luxuriating in the beautiful Bay of Naples. We still shudder to see some of the ash-preserved bodies of the victims in their moment of death.

Pliny the Younger, was a young man in AD79 living across the Bay of Naples at Misenum with his mother and his uncle, the famous natural historian, Pliny the older, who was killed when he made an exploratory scientific trip over the water to Pompeii on the first day of the eruption. Pliny the Younger wrote his unique eye-witness account of the catastrophe in a letter to his friend, the young Tacitus, later to become Ancient Rome’s greatest historian.

‘The ashes now began to fall upon us, though in no great quantity. I looked back; a dense dark mist seemed to be following us, spreading itself over the country like a cloud. “Let us turn out of the high-road,” I said, “while we can still see, for fear that, should we fall in the road, we should be pressed to death in the dark, by the crowds that are following us.” We had scarcely sat down when night came upon us, not such as we have when the sky is cloudy, or when there is no moon, but that of a room when it is shut up, and all the lights put out. You might hear the shrieks of women, the screams of children, and the shouts of men; some calling for their children, others for their parents, others for their husbands, and seeking to recognise each other by the voices that replied; one lamenting his own fate, another that of his family; some wishing to die, from the very fear of dying; some lifting their hands to the gods’ (Pliny the Younger, Letter to Tacitus, AD79).

It was a moving experience to stand on the site of Pompeii and to imagine the terrible scenes that occurred here so long ago but, in a quirk of history and archeology, still remains viscerally realistic to us today. I was lucky enough to walk round these empty ruined streets because this was January and there were not many people around what is usually a very crowded tourist destination.

Here the absence of those dead citizens of Pompeii was vividly reflected in the desolation of the ruins that felt all so abandoned still after normal life here ended in two days of horror. I acknowledge the importance of the site for historians and archaeologists, and admire them for their work, but for many of us, a visit to Pompeii is primarily emotional and philosophical.

We don’t know the names of those who survived or those who died but, remarkably, we have more than just the stone remains of the city to show us at least some of the details of who they were, these people of Pompeii, and how they lived and what they thought was beautiful.

The essential other half of a visit to this site, is to go to the Naples Archaeological Museum which is now home to many of the artefacts and works of art found here, preserved in the ashes. In Naples you can see some of the fine interior designs for some of the houses, as well as many works of art and utility objects from Pompeii’s citizens’ domestic lives.

There are also, maybe most interestingly, a number of what are probably portraits of some of the inhabitants of Pompeii. Wonderful images of ordinary people who look just like us, or more of less. These show us that behind the drama and the history, there were always human beings.

The grander houses of Pompeii had elaborately decorated walls in their main living spaces – some showed battle scenes like this one showing the military victories of Alexander the Great.

Other murals depict legendary figures, such as Perseus and Andromeda, or classical gods like Venus and Mars.

There are also more down-to-earth images, such as this troupe of lively actors and musicians.

There are highly realistic studies of animals, like this triumphant lion killing a leopard, or even what appear to be beloved domestic pets, a dog straining on its lead, or a pair of fighting cocks.

Maybe the most famous murals from Pompeii are not gods and goddesses or heroes of legends, but images that were probably displayed in brothels, and these are some of the more discreet ones. They might have been salacious for otherwise prudish brothel clients or, I’d like to think, they show a healthy, untroubled view of sex.

The phallus was a symbol of good health, good luck and prosperity for the people of Pompeii, presumably, the bigger the better, and phallic images were often used as street signs or good luck charms on door lintels to ward off evil.

Here Priapus is not represented as an erotic image, if he was meant to, this comically unrealistic mage might not have worked. Priapus here is a symbol of luck and prosperity but let’s assume, he also shows an unembarrassed and optimistic view of sex.

Actors and musicians often appear in these Pompeii murals and mosaics, and we can only assume Pompeii citizens loved the theatre – the amphitheatre here is well preserved and could have entertained large numbers in the city’s classical theatre-in-the-round.

I was persuaded to make a fool of myself in public – again – by our Neapolitan tour guide, who is also a Pompeii antiquarian, and to whom I had foolishly told that I once studied singing. He suggested that I go down to the centre of the stage and test the acoustics with a burst of song. To an audience of no more than eight or nine tourists, including some members of a young Chinese dance troupe, I did my best at an impromptu chorus of a song. I didn’t have to think long about what to sing – well this is Naples, so it had to be O sole mio. They could hear me at the back, I was told.

The Polish sculptor, Igor Mitoraj (1944 – 21014) was commissioned to make an exhibition of his work with its emphasis on fragmented human bodies. After the exhibition finished, this figure of Daedalus was kept here, now a permanent exhibit. It shows Daedalus, the man who made wings of wax and flew too close to the sun. it dominates the skyline at the entrance to Pompeii in a way that’s entirely appropriate to this inspiring but tragic place.

It deserves to stand here, just as a painting of Vesuvius by Andy Warhol has earned its place in Naples’ Capodimonte Gallery along with Caravaggio and Titian. Pompei and its fall, like Daedalus, will speak to every generation about the impermanence of life.

This visit proved to be the end of my four years of travelling around Italy, because the Covid virus over-took us all. only week after my visit to Pompeii. In Italy I found many new things and also confirmed to myself, the many reasons why I need to keep returning to this wonderful country. One of my earliest Italian enthusiasms, as I have reported here before, was the voice of that great Neapolitan, Enrico Caruso (1873 – 1921). I was thinking of him when I made my well-intentioned rendition of O Sole Mio at Pompeii, so it is only appropriate to end this series of blogs with the great man himself in a recording from 1916, proving, at least to me, amongst all this impermanence, the human spirit, like in Pompeii, is immortal.

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I broke my journey home from my Devon weekend, at one of Sussex’s most distinguished stately homes, Petworth House in, well naturally with posh houses, Petworth – English stately homes tend not to have street numbers and towns are usually named after them, not the other way round.

This mostly 17th. Century mansion has medieval bits as well as Victorian additions and has been a seat for the well-heeled through the bad old days of English history in 1151,  later becoming a 13th Century fortified manor house. Since those days it has been occupied by some of the grandest of English families, including the Earls of Northumberland, the Percy family, who first came over to England with William the Conqueror and his boat loads of thugs. The families since then have handed down their influence from generation to generation, sometimes on the female side, often through an illegitimate line and can be connected to many of the bloodiest events in our history including the Wars of the Roses, the English Civil War and 19th. Century mining. By 1668, when the present building began, the owners of Petworth had mostly stopped fighting and had settled down with their inheritance to be just plain rich.  In 1947, the place was “given” to the National Trust to look after for the nation, us, but the traditional owners are allowed to linger on in the south wing and, presumably, to romp all over the place when the paying visitors go at night.

There are 700 acres of parkland designed between 1751 and 1764 by the greatest of all parkland designers, “Capability” Brown who made a speciality of making artificial plantings look like an idealised Nature. He was so successful that many people now believe that this is what England would look like if it was just left to return to the wild.

It would be forever civilized, quiet and free from intrusive conurbations of common people.

So trees grow exactly where they are told to grow, balancing the view and calming the mind.

Just in case it seemed too natural the owners scattered a few ancient Greek temples just to give the place the feel of its ancient aristocratic heritage.

Actually the elderly oak trees do that anyway – magnificent at their full height with their massive and gnarled trunks that intone permanence in deep centuries old voices.

Inside, there is a lot of old stuff too.

Paintings by Van Dyke, Gainsborough, Reynolds, William Blake, Constable and, of course, Turner who visited the place often in the time of the 3rd Earl of Egremont who supplied the great artist with a studio somewhere upstairs where he did his bit to immortalise the great house.

The sofas aren’t as old but they look very comfortable if bland. Petworth House, at the time of the same 3rd Earl (1751-1837) was a comfortable place not just for artists but for the great man’s fifteen mistresses and their forty odd children. There was a lot of everything going on at Petworth in those days.

There are paintings all over the many acres of interior walls here but one of the most impressive spaces is the carved room with intricate wood carving by, amongst others, the master of them all, Grinling Gibbons (1648 – 1721). Oh yes, and that is King Henry VIII there in the middle.

The marble hall is fine too with its mix of classical and neoclassical statues.

The main dining room has an indigestible surfeit of paintings too – perfect to gaze at when you are seated next to a guest who is boring you to death with tales of the afternoon’s shoot.

If you hadn’t seen enough paintings in the main state rooms then you could still go to the custom built art gallery which is an interesting memorial to how paintings used to be hung – all over the place.

There are plenty of Greek and Roman statues too – some authentic and others the products of admiring 18th and 19th. Century hands – and worth a look if you are not embarrassed by rows of naked people.

This one, the man with his lion,  is a mix of ancient and modern, well neoclassical….a broken statue improved with the addition of missing limbs, head and artifacts.

The real thing is this extraordinary Roman statue, apparently done from the life, of the very badly-behaved Emperor Nero (AD 37 – AD 68) as a boy who looks as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.

If I had to take one work of art with me though – I tried but they saw it sticking out from under my shirt when the alarm went off – it would be this wonderful painting by Claude (1604 – 1682),  Jacob with Rachel and Lear in an imagined Italian landscape. It was Turner’s favourite too, I was told.

It must have been wonderful to be rich and conscience-free in those golden days in Britain’s past but better now, I think, when we can all go and have a look.

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