on and slotted in an old Luciano Pavarotti disc. They turned up the volume and sang “Torna a Sorrento” along with the great tenor as the Alfa hummed quietly toward the Bay of Naples.
CHAPTER 6
Ercolano, Italy
AMANDA HAD HOPED TO get started in Ercolano as soon as possible. But when Juan Carlos knocked on her door midmorning that Saturday, she still felt exhausted. She had slept fitfully, her bizarre dreams punctuated by a herd of Romagnola crossing a pitch-dark road. Jet lag from the long airplane journey also didn’t help. Still, Amanda roused herself and stumbled down to breakfast, lured by the smell of strong coffee and fresh rolls.
At breakfast, Silvio Sforza, Juan Carlos’s grandfather, vetoed any suggestion they start the project that day. Amanda needed rest, he said. The exploration might prove to be physically arduous, depending on what lay behind the bronze doors. Deferring to his judgment, Amanda silently thanked him for the extra day of rest.
The Sforzas’ hospitality made her feel genuinely at home. Silvio and his wife, Renata, owners of a large apartment in Naples, had rented a modest but comfortable house in Ercolano for the excavation season from early April to late October. Amanda was installed in a cozy room on the top floor, whose sparse furnishings suggested it had once been a nursery.
Although in their late sixties, both Silvio and Renata looked much younger. Silvio was of average height, portly and aristocratic, with aquiline features, a classic Roman nose, and thinning gray hair. Renata was almost as tall as Amanda, with wavy salt-and-pepper hair. They had reared six children, and their second daughter Diana, Juan Carlos’s mother, lived in the Spanish Mediterranean city of Valencia, where Juan Carlos was born.
As Amanda cupped her hands around her second mug of coffee, Silvio suggested that Juan Carlos squire Amanda around on a private tour of the excavations.
“Since you were last here,” Silvio began, “there have been a number of major finds. Some of them remain unpublished and have not yet been exhibited. Even with the resources shared with us by the Getty,” and here he bowed graciously, “it is so hard for us to keep up with antiquities in Italy. We simply don’t have the funds. And some of my colleagues are not as assiduous as they should be in making their discoveries public.”
Amanda nodded sympathetically.
“If you can crack the code on those doors—and I am pretty sure it is a code—we have no idea what you’ll find. But that is tomorrow’s business. Today, Juan Carlos will do an excellent job of updating you on the local context. He’s nearing the end of his second season with our excavation team.”
“Why not get started after breakfast?” suggested Renata. “I’ll have lunch ready at two o’clock. Then we’ll all relax with a siesta.”
She turned to Amanda.
“It still gets quite hot here in the afternoons.”
“Sounds like an excellent plan,” Amanda smiled to Juan Carlos.
“Then we are decided,” concluded Silvio. “Amanda, I leave you in the capable hands of il cocco della nonna .”
Amanda’s puzzled expression evoked a literal translation from Silvio.
“It’s—how should I say?—an expression that means something like ‘the apple of the eye of the grandmother.’”
As they all laughed, Amanda thought she could detect a trace of a blush on her friend’s cheeks.
***
They spent the next three hours weaving between ancient and modern, marveling yet again at the way present-day Ercolano lay on top of Roman Herculaneum. Over three centuries, since the first traces of the ancient town were found in 1709, less than one half of it had been excavated. Scanty budgets, public opinion, and fiercely defended property rights made it doubtful that excavations would ever be complete, or even reach the level of neighboring Pompeii. Most of Herculaneum’s important public buildings, such as the palaestra , or sports complex;
CHAPTER 6
Ercolano, Italy
AMANDA HAD HOPED TO get started in Ercolano as soon as possible. But when Juan Carlos knocked on her door midmorning that Saturday, she still felt exhausted. She had slept fitfully, her bizarre dreams punctuated by a herd of Romagnola crossing a pitch-dark road. Jet lag from the long airplane journey also didn’t help. Still, Amanda roused herself and stumbled down to breakfast, lured by the smell of strong coffee and fresh rolls.
At breakfast, Silvio Sforza, Juan Carlos’s grandfather, vetoed any suggestion they start the project that day. Amanda needed rest, he said. The exploration might prove to be physically arduous, depending on what lay behind the bronze doors. Deferring to his judgment, Amanda silently thanked him for the extra day of rest.
The Sforzas’ hospitality made her feel genuinely at home. Silvio and his wife, Renata, owners of a large apartment in Naples, had rented a modest but comfortable house in Ercolano for the excavation season from early April to late October. Amanda was installed in a cozy room on the top floor, whose sparse furnishings suggested it had once been a nursery.
Although in their late sixties, both Silvio and Renata looked much younger. Silvio was of average height, portly and aristocratic, with aquiline features, a classic Roman nose, and thinning gray hair. Renata was almost as tall as Amanda, with wavy salt-and-pepper hair. They had reared six children, and their second daughter Diana, Juan Carlos’s mother, lived in the Spanish Mediterranean city of Valencia, where Juan Carlos was born.
As Amanda cupped her hands around her second mug of coffee, Silvio suggested that Juan Carlos squire Amanda around on a private tour of the excavations.
“Since you were last here,” Silvio began, “there have been a number of major finds. Some of them remain unpublished and have not yet been exhibited. Even with the resources shared with us by the Getty,” and here he bowed graciously, “it is so hard for us to keep up with antiquities in Italy. We simply don’t have the funds. And some of my colleagues are not as assiduous as they should be in making their discoveries public.”
Amanda nodded sympathetically.
“If you can crack the code on those doors—and I am pretty sure it is a code—we have no idea what you’ll find. But that is tomorrow’s business. Today, Juan Carlos will do an excellent job of updating you on the local context. He’s nearing the end of his second season with our excavation team.”
“Why not get started after breakfast?” suggested Renata. “I’ll have lunch ready at two o’clock. Then we’ll all relax with a siesta.”
She turned to Amanda.
“It still gets quite hot here in the afternoons.”
“Sounds like an excellent plan,” Amanda smiled to Juan Carlos.
“Then we are decided,” concluded Silvio. “Amanda, I leave you in the capable hands of il cocco della nonna .”
Amanda’s puzzled expression evoked a literal translation from Silvio.
“It’s—how should I say?—an expression that means something like ‘the apple of the eye of the grandmother.’”
As they all laughed, Amanda thought she could detect a trace of a blush on her friend’s cheeks.
***
They spent the next three hours weaving between ancient and modern, marveling yet again at the way present-day Ercolano lay on top of Roman Herculaneum. Over three centuries, since the first traces of the ancient town were found in 1709, less than one half of it had been excavated. Scanty budgets, public opinion, and fiercely defended property rights made it doubtful that excavations would ever be complete, or even reach the level of neighboring Pompeii. Most of Herculaneum’s important public buildings, such as the palaestra , or sports complex;
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