Author Description

Among the perspectives that the scientific exploration of Pompei has opened to research and beyond, the study of feminineness plays a major role. Until the discovery of the Vesuvian cities, people's idea of daily life in the ancient world was conditioned to a very large extent by texts. Texts that in almost all cases were written by men, who belonged to a small elite of people who could devote themselves to study and otium, with a few exceptions of writers from the middle and lower classes and very few women who left literary records. The discovery of a city with its spaces, but also with furniture, furnishings, and findings such as precisely mirrors and other objects associated with the mundus muliebris, have expanded the limited gaze of the literary tradition. To give an example of how this knowledge has transcended even the con purposes of the antiquarian disciplines, consider fashion: the "Greek" fashion which after the "tyranny" of the corset in the 18th century liberated the female body from clothing that literally constrained it, is inspired by the archaeological discoveries of the time and a new interest in deriving knowledge and inspiration from them to complementing what was being learned from reading the authors classics. Even today, that "other Pompeii," or the Pompeii that speaks of the many aspects marginalized or completely obscured in the literary sources, is a mine of data and knowledge which scientific and museological-didactic valorization is far from being completed. While much remains to be done in terms of research and valorization of this heritage, this work is certainly an important step in this direction, as it skillfully combines philological analysis of specific contexts and objects with more general historical-archaeological reflections.