The Fortifications of Pompeii and Ancient Italy, written by University of Texas at Austin alumnus Ivo van der Graaff (Ph.D. in Art History, 2013), was recently reviewed by Ray Laurence of Bryn Mawr Classical Review. The online academic blog is known for its reviews of scholarly work done in the classical studies field.
Graff’s book, published by Routledge, moves beyond the discussions of the fortifications of Pompeii being the city's largest, oldest and best preserved public monument. In a recent interview with our Art and Art History Department, Graff said there’s more to the topic of the book than the title suggests.
This study is a way to look at fortifications as a civic monument in the same way as other public buildings. Such a study means addressing topics that include patronage, design, upgrades, urban development and what they mean for city walls and the community they protected.
His book looks at the fortifications as a physical and symbolic monument that has shaped the city, which the reviewer, Lawrence, appreciates.
“The book provides the reader with the evidence for Pompeii's fortifications and the author is to be commended for undertaking the challenge of making this important feature accessible to advanced students,” wrote Laurence in his review.
It’s a subject that Bryn Mawr Classical Review states has fairly little literature devoted to its study, despite Pompeii’s fortifications’ prominence; mostly due to a lack of preservation of records of the city.
“Yet the author has extracted many details from the excavation records, duly setting them down with a full history of the excavations, including, for example, fragments of bronze statuary found at the Porta Ercolano that subsequently disappeared,” Laurence wrote.
Bryn Maw Classical Review points out a few questions that they felt should have been answered such as “the conceptual framework of Roman archaeology in the 21st century,” but values the detail and sheer amount of research that went into the writing of Graff’s The Fortifications of Pompeii and Ancient Italy.
Laurence said, “there is an admirable amount of work in this book that provides a way into the subject of defences at Pompeii that – after the paved streets – were the city's largest public monument.”