SPECIAL ARCHEOLOGICAL EXHIBIT FROM SICILY
FEATURING THREE MARBLE BUSTS FROM PANTELLERIA

Harrison St. Gallery, 4th floor, Center House, September 21 - October 18, 2006

The three synthetic resin copies that will be presented for a month in a special exhibit here-perfect copies, if we examine the originals-contain an essence of autonomy and a capacity for amplifying the subject that are characteristic of copies and are properties of a plaster cast. And, as happens in the history of language or the history of sounds in music, a non-inanimate cast of a linguistic concept or a musical leitmotiv, provided that it is a true copy and not just a cold imitation, is certainly something else, something possessing its own autonomy and its own vitality of content as regards the original work, even if, formally speaking, it is in fact a repetition - if for no other reason because it is its double, with its own individual life, and therefore with its own individual destiny.

Only if we bear in mind these principles, which in works of art substantially outweigh the concept of protection and the duty of safeguarding the original work, is it possible to justify the desire to exhibit here, in these early years of the third millennium, as part of the Italian Festival at Seattle Center, the copies of the three Sicilian marble heads from the island of Kossyra (Pantelleria).

This system of signs and shapes, repeated in copies, was well known in antiquity, especially in Greece, in the capitals of the Hellenistic kingdoms, and in Rome. The copies were of written works sought after by newly instituted libraries, but they also concerned the figurative arts, in particular sculpture and painting. The meritorious labor of medieval transcription and the powerful humanistic scientific current transferred to western culture in general and to European culture in particular a whole world of notions, discoveries, works, signs, and images. In conclusion, a cast is not an ephemeral matter. And then, during the second half of the glorious eighteenth Century the study of the Greek masterpieces in sculpture was founded everywhere in Europe on the plaster-casts.

If we consider the ancient past, Rome was the place where more than anywhere else the trade of copies, especially of Greek works, was widespread, even at the personal and family level. Copies, and on occasion replicas of portraits of ancestors, following precise rules codified by ius imaginum, were the norm in the practice of the great families: the whole process of the reproduction and use of masks and copies of family portraits was well documented by Plutarch.

All this explains why possibly only one original contemporary portrait, of the year 44 BC, exists of such a dominant political figure as Julius Caesar, found in Tusculo and now kept in the Castello di Agliè near Turin. All the other portraits of the dictator are copies, some of outstanding iconographic and stylistic quality, ranging over a period of time that stretches from the early Julio-Claudian age to the reign of Trajan. Apropos of this, Bernard Schweitzer's old yet unsurpassed study has thrown definitive light on the matter.

A few brief remarks on the history of the ancient Cossura (Pantelleria) and on the manner of the discovery.

Pantelleria is a volcanic island southwest of Sicily, nearer to the African coast than to Sicily. It may have been inhabited since the Neolithic Age, as suggested by traces of a village and fortifications in the district of Mursia. The historical period shows the presence first of the Phoenicians and then of the Punics; the Carthaginian presence unquestionably lasted from the fourth to the second century BC. Pseudo-Skylax informs us that Kossyra was the gateway to Lilybaeum as early as the fourth century. Also, Cossura must have been a city frequented and fortified also by the Romans throughout the first century AD, if Pliny the Elder (Nat. Hist., V, 7) defined it "Cossura cum oppido."

Today, however, we possess new data regarding the Roman occupation.
But before proceeding any further, we must recall the initial studies of Paolo Orsi (1889), and the later studies of Verger (1966), Tozzi (1968), and Bisi (1970). Since the summer of 2000, thanks first to the University of Greifswald and then to the University of Tübingen, the Università degli Studi della Basilicata, and the Archaeological Heritage branch of the Environment and Cultural Heritage Department of Trapani Town Council, there has been a systematic archaeological investigation of the hegemonic centre of the ancient Hellenistic-Roman island of Cossyra.

Recent digs would appear to show that a large part of the hill was used essentially for residential purposes. A series of buildings, made by terracing the slope of the hill with elegant signinum paving, belongs to the urban redefinition following the Roman occupation of the city. Among the monumental structures that must have been in this area, there is a temple datable to the 2nd century BC, significant traces of which have been found inside the cisterns.

Other than the numerous fragments of inlaid marble that have been discovered, the numerous fragments of marble sculptures and the now famous imperial portraits indicate that the hill was much frequented in the Imperial Age. Also, three interesting sculptures portraying the same figures as portraits of well-known figures in Roman history, between the end of the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD, were found inside two of the cisterns in the acropolis. The contextual environment of the discoveries was not homogeneous. The first two portraits found together in the cistern are in Parian marble, and they portray Julius Caesar and a lady of the Julio-Claudian family, probably Antonia Minor or Agrippina Major.

The indubitable archaeological context of the laying-down of these portraits is the third quarter of the first century AD, an era not much later than the dating of the portraits themselves. There is evidence that the portraits were deposited with pietas and covered over with the remains of sacrifices evidently performed during ceremonies that must have come before the "burial". The possibility cannot be excluded that the heads were removed from the building in which they were to have been placed in order to make room for new personages on the occasion of the Julio-Claudian and Flavian dynastic change.

The portrait of Julius Caesar is a variant of the Tusculum type (Castello di Agliè, Turin), made for a statue slightly smaller than life-size, possibly wearing a toga. The marble is Parian. The original dates to 44-40 BC, as clearly evidenced by an examination of structure of the head, broad at the temples, the low cranium, the short hair combed forward, and the sharp profile, as found on the denarii of Sepullius Macer and Marcus Mettius. This is a copy of exceptional quality, produced by an urban workshop that was active between the end of the reign of Tiberius and, more probably, the beginning of the empire of Claudius. Among the features of the long triangular face, it is the eyes that draw one's attention, with their distant gaze; the lips are agile and finely designed, and the surfaces - especially those of the cheeks - exhibit consummate skill. The Pantelleria portrait is more open and more idealized than the Tusculo marble even if, despite its elevated stylistic quality, it does not attain the concentration of Caesar's portrait in the Vatican. Notwithstanding, this new marble presents itself as one of the most refined and cultivated portraits of the dictator, of "the Italian who mastered the world", to use Max Gallo's definition in his novel Caesar, now published (2004) also in Italian.

The female head is that of an important figure in the Julio-Claudian dynasty, probably Antonia Minor, mother of the emperor Claudius and grandmother of Caligula. The facial traits can be linked to a type of portrait identification on which research remains controversial. Other possible identifications of the portrait are Messalina, Claudius's third wife, and Drusilla, Caligula's sister. But here we are in the world of hypothesis. However, this fine portrait of a Roman lady is even more likely to represent Agrippina Major. The head develops the typical hairstyle of Antonia Minor, Claudius's beautiful mother. If we examine coins and other known portraits, we might well date the Pantelleria marble, which is posthumous, to the years after AD 37, following the funerary honours rendered to Caligula's mother, or, at the latest, between AD 46 and 54, on the basis of coin profiles, but in no case later than the last date proposed, i.e. that of Claudius's death. A more direct comparison, despite the differences, can be made with the fine portrait in the Capitoline Museums, as also with the three heads in Copenhagen, Glyptoteque NY Carlsberg 630, at Cyrene and in the Civic Museum of Termini Imerese. The hypothesis that it represents Antonia Augusta, whose face is always sharper, more triangular, and straight-nosed, and often presented wearing a diadem, falls short in our opinion for the following reasons: the slant of the eyes, the slightly aquiline nose with its broad bridge, and the long curly locks at the side of the head. The head was originally veiled: at the back the lacuna is caused by the loss of the marble filling, the attachment surface is stippled, and the point of insertion of the holding-pin for the adjunct is present. Larger than life-size, the portrait was done for a draped iconic statue of elevated level. It was put to a second use, as shown by the hole in the base of the joining cone in the neck. It must have been a new use, once again as a statue, if the alteration was done in ancient times, possibly because of damage to the original one, considering the excellent state of the head. It is a refined late-Claudian or even Neronian work, done in Parian marble.

The third portrait, of the Emperor Titus, Vespasian's son, can be placed - using the Fittschen typological classification - in the second type. It is one of the few among the better known and more successful portraits of the Prince, one that was done after the Judaic triumph in AD 71, when for the first time he assumed the tribunicia potestas. Judging by certain youthful and celebratory aspects, it is possible to place it, like the example in the Copenhagen Glyptoteque, after AD 71 and even to make it coincide with the year he took power, i.e., AD 79 or soon after. Titus died on September 13th in the year 81. As to the physiognomy, which has been much studied, we recall the following: the head from Herculaneum in the Museo Nazionale in Naples 6059 (which belonged to an armoured statue), the example in Copenhagen that we have already mentioned, and the head from Minturno in the Museo Nazionale in Naples 150.216 (sometimes said to be of Domitian). However, the powerful structure of the skull, the deliberate thickening of the facial features, the small close-set eyes, and the curly hair are bound to recall not only the first of the two Neapolitan heads but also the vigorous portrait of the armoured statue of Sabratha. The Pantelleria portrait is also perfectly preserved, its quality of execution is very high, and it must originally have been inserted in the statue via the rough cone that juts out under the opening of the neck. The Cossyra portrait was hidden in the cistern, probably during the sad days of the invasion of the Vandals and in the subsequent final abandonment of the area (6th century AD), judging by stratigraphical elements in the vicinity. The marble too is different from the other two: although also Greek, it is of a white-grey thick grain, possibly from Thasos and less probably from Naxos.

The three portraits are only the most representative elements of many very prestigious finds uncovered in the acropolis of Cossyra that demonstrate the vitality of the settlement in the Roman era. Between the first and the second centuries AD, Pantelleria became one of the important locations of the Roman presence in the Mediterranean. The Imperial dynasties also had direct interests in the island, starting with Augustus. Apart from other considerations, the island is in a very strategic position, both in terms of the Mediterranean routes (both from east-west and north-south) and in terms of the island's great agricultural and industrial potential: it was the site of one of the most prosperous factories of kitchenware in the central Mediterranean.

The figurative culture of the Roman age in Sicily and the minor islands can be distinguished and classified on the basis of historical ages. Some periods are poorly documented in the island, while there is a marked variety and number of items from the Julio-Claudian age and from the late Empire. The extreme paucity of data in almost all cases regarding the origin and the destination of mobile works of art and especially of works made of marble; the impossibility of relating materials to public and private buildings that justify their creation and their presence; the negative testimony of Roman marble workshops operating in Sicily and the minor islands; the proven scarcity of raw material and the total lack of specialized quarries - all these are serious reasons that prevent any extensive and in-depth critical research. Hence, and only with some difficulty, our investigations can be directed at single iconographic and stylistic problems and with even greater risk at historico-artistic problems, in an attempt to sketch a brief profile.

It is indeed an unhoped-for stroke of luck that Pantelleria is the origin of the three portraits of Caesar, Agrippina Major (or Antonia Minor), and Tito; because, apart from Agrippina, as we have seen, as regards the two chronological periods, other Sicilian portraits of Caesar are problematic and no portrait of Tito is present in Sicily.

One is inclined to exclude the possibility that on the island of Pantelleria, the ancient Kossyra, we can identify a "place of imperial power", for example the seat of an imperial cult or a public building that might have housed the images of these and other rulers; here indeed Caesar would have been out of place, if this is a site of an imperial cult - only that we are making a comparison with the Julio-Claudian statuary complexes at Centuripe, Cerveteri, Leptis Magna, and to a certain extent of Sabratha, where to the south of the Judiciary Basilica Giudiziaria there is a genuine "exedra of the imperial cult". I hope to be contradicted in future by new discoveries in Pantelleria. Meanwhile, today, the three marble portraits, which come from two different cisterns, appear to me to be outside their original primary historical context: since the two places of finding cannot correspond either to the initial destination or to a later, secondary collocation - they would more likely seem to have been chosen as a temporary site where the items, by that time devoid of any significance or reference value, were deposited for the time being, pending their removal at some later convenient moment, something that in fact never happened. For now, we can only hope that future research will solve the riddle of the three heads conserved in the cisterns of Kossyra.