Antonio Piaggio

File:Abbot Piaggios machine Device-to-unroll-papyri 1756 Vatican.jpg

In 1752, the Villa of the Papyri was discovered in the city of Herculaneum, having been buried during the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius. The rolled papyri scrolls had been carbonised and then preserved by the hot volcanic deposits, and many efforts were made to try and unroll and decipher them. Piaggio, who was a priest and curator of manuscripts in the Vatican,https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/villa_papiri/inner.html was brought to Naples to assist, and invented a simple machine to unroll the manuscripts using silk threads attached to the edge of the papyrus.{{Cite web|url=https://thephraser.com/2015/03/30/herculaneum-papyri-in-the-national-library-in-naples/|title=Herculaneum Papyri in the National Library in Naples|date=March 30, 2015}} The unrolling was partially successful, but proved to be rather destructive for the fragile scrolls, yet vastly improving on the prevailing practice of eviscerating or scraping the scrolls.

From September 1779 to August 1795, Piaggio kept a series of diaries for Sir William Hamilton, in which he recorded daily observations and sketches of Vesuvius, which he could see from his residence at Madonna Pugliano near Resina, on the western side of Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples. These diaries were presented by Hamilton to Sir Joseph Banks, and then presented by Lady Dorothea Banks to the Royal Society in 1805.{{Cite web|url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_D-3-491|title=print; letter | British Museum|website=The British Museum}} The diaries remain in the Royal Society archives today.{{Cite web|url=https://catalogues.royalsociety.org/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=MS/2&pos=1|title=Search Results|website=catalogues.royalsociety.org}}

One of Piaggio's sketches of the 1779 eruption of Vesuvius was used by Hamilton as the basis for an illustration in the lavish book 'Campi Phlegraei';{{Cite web|url=https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/frontispiece-depicting-several-vesuvius-eruptions-from-hamilton-s-1779-supplement-to-the-campi-phlegraei-finnin-denis/9gH1Xcg_n6aJ4A|title=Frontispiece depicting several Vesuvius eruptions from Hamilton's 1779 Supplement to the Campi Phlegraei - Finnin, Denis|website=Google Arts & Culture}} and a number of Piaggio's engravings remain in circulation.{{Cite web|url=https://www.cheffins.co.uk/fine-art/lot-view,aniello-cataneo-fl-naples-c17431806-after-antonio-piaggio-italian-circa-171_63226.htm|title=Aniello Cataneo (fl. Naples, c.1743-1806) after Antonio Piaggio (Italian, circa 1713-1795) in - Cheffins Fine Art|date=January 27, 2019|website=www.cheffins.co.uk}} Hamilton used another of Piaggio's illustrations in a paper describing the 1794 eruption of Vesuvius. The caption records that Piaggio drew the sketch from Resina during the force of the eruption, but that the proximity to the activity meant that it was incomplete since Piaggio's friends had had to rescue him in the midst of a shower of cinders and sulphureous ashes.https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10.1098/rstl.1795.0006

The British Museum holds a drawing by Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione that was once from Piaggio's collections.{{Cite web|url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1997-0607-10|title=drawing | British Museum|website=The British Museum}}

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Category:1713 births

Category:1790s deaths

Category:Year of death uncertain

Category:18th-century scholars

Category:18th-century Italian Roman Catholic priests