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The Archaeological Museum of Pithekoussai Reliquary or cultural attraction?

There is no magic in what is related to the spaces of Villa Arbusto if magic is not a visceral affection and emotional memory, the sense of belonging and the desire to return. I met it in decent abandonment of dust that hid the tiles of its bright tiled or wore out those scattered in the park; I lived in the years of my studies among the shelves of the store at which the precious relics of Pithekoussai were  sorted and stored, when it was taken for upcoming sorting of the museum; I visited it admired,  returned to culture with commendable effort, acropolis of a story found, opposite the oldest acropolis in Greece of the West. And I went back several times. Many people tell me, though, the Archaeological Museum of  Pithekoussai does  not work.

In the sense that – compared to its extraordinary content are few visitors compared to the mass of tourists who flock Ischia for at least  eight months a year, and fewer still come because they are  aware of its value.  Yet the container is wonderful, the park enjoyable and wellmaintained, often  with scene of events  and shows. The problem is the same as hundreds of Italian museums. Go ahead to the collective technological, technicality and parascientific hangover hearsay that clouds the minds of people the XXI century, go to the heart the crisis of classical and humanistic culture (induced and driven by handlers recognizable); if one  asks a high school student, graduate, many graduates and professionals of scientific, technological and economic area what arouses the word museum: most will communicate  feelings of heaviness, of seriousness,  of boredom, even of  old stuff; if they visit the museum, it is to perform a ritual, to tag the place, to see with the naked  eye what virtuality, information and reputation have consecrated idol, to take a selfie where it is allowed, leaving a sign of anything next mortal to immortality made fetish. They  are the experts, connoisseurs, enthusiastic connoisseurs are  those like me, not others that are still able to enjoy it, but with all the discomfort that inspires  the unhealthy idea of the museum as a mortuary shrine,  memorial, sanctuary, a conservatorship of a immobility  register, showcase  and pedestals, made of small numbers of boring unreadable  captions, of technical terms, acronyms  of centuries, of punctilious references to  a local dimension that can not escape  those who are not local, in the panels that would and should be introduced  in a world and a time, but they are  often spelled with a spirit of learning by employees, rather than by intellectuals and masters of communication and science. In Italian museums, with rare exceptions, you enter to keep quiet. To read panels and captions, as it will go, are weighing in a plaquette of hundred pages, but infinitely worse written. To isolate, if anything, as a forcedaspiring rapper with the inevitable audio guides. Rarely would  you find college  students, from art  schools intent to  think, draw from  life, photographing;  or locals who take  advantage of a free  afternoon, of a soirée  with the conference,  a lunch break to enjoy a room, soak in the beauty but that resists! And maybe  chatting amiably to the cafeteria. Because the museum, and just put your nose to the north of the Italic borders, is a place to live, if it accepts and invites. The Archaeological Museum of Pithekoussai would  have everything to  become a role model  and a cultural attraction of prime importance to Ischia: findings of exceptional  interest, the result of excavations carried  out scientifically and studied for decades; a splendid architectural setting and environment; such spaces to accommodate exhibitions of Mediterranean  archeology, perhaps  through partnerships with other Italian museums and especially the Greeks,  and this requires a professional staff  and structured  freelancers who are  involved in similar operations in synergy with universities  and supervision. They are appreciable development strictly chronological and topographical of the present preparation, the use of space and the placement of objects, but a lot should be reconsidered. We talk about the Cup of Nestor: a treasure that the world  envies us, the first Western poem prior to the drafting of the Homeric poems. It should have an entire available room.  Each 10 minutes on the walls should run amplified images,  a narrator’s voice  should tell the story,  a narrator intersecting it and resonate  in ancient Greek, in Italian, English and German two hexameters, saturating the environment; and a re-enactment of his way, by reference  to the true Homeric Nestor’s cup to the image of the golden Mycenaean cup of the same name by the will and imagination of Heinrich Schliemann would give way to a sequence of scenes which have as their theme the wine, the symposium , the funeral with actors. Bring to life the viewer in the ancient Pithekoussai for ten minutes, and then lead him among the testimonies of the life of the Euboian colony. And in this room, every month, they could find space the Homeric Lectures accompanied by readings of poetic songs, themed with entertainment-actors, or the music of ancient Greece; and margin in the event  of each evening, a wine tasting islanders would be an incentive to rediscover the museum as an active part in the tourismsystem. The materials of the buildings from the Archaic period found at the acropolis  (especially in exhaust Gosetti) can  not be mummified in glass cases, but must be relocated to the correct height, which suggests the view, with partial reconstructions of the elevations for Hypothetically, using materials and technological anodyne (Plexiglas, glass, plywood, etc.) or natural wood, and the spaces must be “inhabited” by figures which, starting from the materials on display in the windows and the excavation data, presenting the appearance of Pithecusans, their clothing, ornaments; elsewhere they have to find space on the basis of excavation data, full-scale reconstructions of the “industrial district” of Mazzola, with a reference to the metallurgical production and goldsmith, and the rural site in Punta Chiarito. In each room inspired  by the model of the British museums  of history should blend sound communication, visual documents and materials with a clever design that involves the viewer both intellectually and on that emotional: the themes of the sea, the trade, the common Mediterranean market can  be told through  objects, showing  those known as the Crater of Shipwreck.  The tragic story geometric style painted  on its walls could be  presented with effects sons et lumières  plunging the room into darkness and sliding like lightning on the walls fragments of the painted scene, superimposing sound effect that do immerse visitors  in the drama. And what about the dozens of commercial amphorae we  identified metrological aspects  and fundamental archaeometric?  The famous from  the grave 575, by as much modest appearance but whose reconstruction of the original capacity has opened unimaginable scenarios on the history of mathematics pre-pitagoric  and organization of the trading system and measures of capacity in age geometric and archaic, could occupy its own space; while a panel to serve as a background to the other pitchers should take into account  the fact that for most of those of Greece, Greek-eastern,  western Phoenician  and Phoenician were  identified areas of origin, allowing you to  view the network of exchanges between  VIII and sixth centuries BC Also deserve  a promotion figured  Attic vases found in graves of the sixth  and fifth centuries BC, of which the perpetrators have been  identified: on one of them, in particular,  appears a myth  that may be happily revived through  sources, sound communication, search  comparisons in the art, and I refer to  the crater Painter of Boreas (460-450 BC). An environment in which we can then prepare for the visit and understanding of the attractive but still not scientifically  shown archaeological crypt of St. Restituta would be using to learn about aspects of the island in the Hellenistic and Roman times, also playing on scale dioramas or reliable digitized reconstructions of shoals Cartaromana or ceramic  neighborhoods  overlooking the Beach of pescatori in Lacco Ameno. On the walls of each room, rather than rich panels too for those who want to  learn should always  exist book-shops and audio guides better  would ultimately  rely on phrases that evoke, orientate and excite the visitor,  to which you then leave the power to read captions and introductions to windows and objects,  provided that be in a language of strong  communicative  impact. Now a museum that wants to become  cultural attraction and research center  should not from the perspective of a balanced budget and management of the existing, but plan investments, adopting communication strategies, to  innovate, to network  with other museums  of the 28 countries  of Europe and the Mediterranean area,  plan events. And the devotees of religion of rationality and accounting some politicians find the courage to explain not only the primacy  of politics over economics as the need for any Renaissance,  that a structure  strong appeal and are much visited determines profits for itself in the limited  size of the ticketing,  ancillary services  (library, cafeteria,  etc.), the temporary  events; and for all in the wider dimension of the tourism system to which it belongs.