Stepping into the life of ancient Pompeii without taking a flight to Italy. Impossible, you may think… unless you’re in the Bay Area. After a delay due to the pandemic, the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco opened its doors to visitors with a special and magnificent exhibition, Last Supper in Pompeii: from the Table to the Grave. By bringing Roman sculpture, mosaics, and frescoes, as well as cups, utensils, and silver dining services for banquets, it reveals how the ancients loved to eat and drink.
Conceived and developed by the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, and organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in collaboration with the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, the Parco Archeologico di Pompei, the Istituto Italiano di Cultura San Francisco, and the Italian Consulate in San Francisco, the exhibit focused on the importance of food and drink in everyday life in Pompeii, which was indeed shared across the Roman Empire.
Pompeii, located in the Southern Italian region of what is now called Campania, lies between the Bay of Naples and Mount Vesuvius. This unique position became both a blessing and a curse for the small town. On one hand, the mild climate and the fertile volcanic soil allowed to grow fruits and vegetables, olives, grains, and grapes. Locals could also count on animals like pigs, goats, and sheep for the production of meat, milk, and cheese. This was crucial in the trade of products around the area by merchants, fishermen, and farmers. On the other hand though, Pompeii, together with nearby villages and farms, fell under the impetus of the Vesuvius volcano. Pumice and hot ash covered houses and killed thousands in the midst of their daily activities. While the plaster casts remind of this enormous disaster, they also give us a picture of what life was like in a Roman city and of the world in AD79.
Food was the cornerstone of main activities and studies have shown how it fostered the sense of community, it helped cultivate rituals, and highlighted the techniques used in the production and the cooking process.
When you walk in the Rosekrans Court, the first encounter is with the statue of Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and fertility. Bacchus, central to every aspect of food and drink in Roman life, is part of the dining room scene, with a fresco of a garden during a reception and of the dining room of a local house, a glimpse of how much locals valued eating together, both in formal and informal settings. The convivium – the being together – also meant sharing couches while tasting fine food and good wine in good company, for fun or for business.
Right before what was considered the heart of any house in ancient Pompeii – the kitchen –, you’ll see food samples that show how fertile the land used to be. Wine was a big part of the local economy and some studies to quantify the amount of wine produced in the area and its potential monetary value showed at least 100 million litres of wine per annum. While the wine was made for export from the region and just a small amount was consumed locally, it also proved the more profitable approach people found, compared to producing only what you need.
Pompeii became famous for figs and the entire region around Mount Vesuvius was known for onions and cabbages, cereals and legumes.
To better understand why the kitchen stays at the core of Pompeiians’ life is important to remember how most Roman kitchens were dark and hot, especially in the summer. That’s also why many used to build them in their courtyard or garden, in order to reduce the risk of fires and used the space for animal sacrifices, especially for pigs and chickens. The remains found during the excavations shed lights on dishes, vessels, and kitchen drains, and some carbonized food found in homes and businesses. It should not come as a surprise that a carbonized loaf of bread was found in a baker’s oven, abandoned when the volcano began to erupt, and now part of the exhibit.
Unfortunately, the image of this loaf of bread is just one of the many showing the outcome of the eruption that surprised Pompeii and its inhabitants one morning in the late fall AD79. The volcano released massive amounts of energy in a gigantic cloud, spewing stones and collapsing in pyroclastic surges – superheated avalanches of toxic gas and ash. It took less than a day: by the evening, Pompeii was destroyed, its agriculture had ceased, and its economy had collapsed.
A few decades ago, in 1984, some excavations of Villa B at Oplontis, near Pompeii, uncovered a storage room containing more than sixty people killed in the eruption. Archaeologists were able to make casts of some of the victims by pouring plaster of Paris into the voids in the ash left by the bodies. One of them brought to light the bones, skull, and teeth of a woman, as well as the possessions she carried – gold jewelry and a string of cheap beads. The “Lady of Oplontis,” as she is called, is on display in the last room of the exhibit, as it is stronger than the other casts and curators were able to bring it to San Francisco, to show the terrible events of that year. The Lady of Oplontis was one of thousands of people who were living in and around Pompeii at the time of the eruption and whose lives were taken away. Like explained during the audio tour, “For the victims of this human tragedy, there were no funerary feasts; no displays of mourning; no prayers with incense and offerings of wine, fruit, or animals. They had no tombstones to carry their names and images to future generations.”
Pompeii’s history continues to amaze even after more than two millennia. It remains, by far, one of the most important pictures of the ancient Roman world.
“The Italian Cultural Institute and for the Consulate General of Italy in San Francisco are proud of the collaboration that allowed to bring the Pompeii exhibition to life. We joined efforts for the preparation and the ‘behind the scenes’ work of this extraordinary exhibit,” IIC Director Di Giorgio said. “The pandemic slowed us down and prevented the curators from traveling to San Francisco. Thanks to my support and involvement, as well as Consul Ortona’s, findings could arrive safely in California and were set up under the supervision of curators who joined virtually from Pompeii. We are also grateful to our Embassy in Washington who supported this collaboration from the very beginning.” And concluded: “After a year like this one, the reopening of a prestigious museum such as the Legion of Honor to the public, and seeing our cultural life, interrupted by the virus, rising again through an exhibition entirely dedicated to Italy, represents a crucial initiative for bilateral cultural collaboration, especially for the 160th anniversary of US and Italian diplomatic relations.”
The first exhibition focusing on Pompeians’ love of food and drink, bringing the Bay of Naples to the Bay of San Francisco, will be on view until August 29th, 2021. For more information, visit https://legionofhonor.famsf.org/exhibitions/pompeii
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