Centro internazionale per lo studio dei papiri ercolanesi

"This is the official website of the "Centro Internazionale per lo Studio dei Papiri Ercolanesi" directed by Marcello Gigante. The centre studies the library of the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum. The website is poor in contents with only basic information and several incomplete sections, including the English version. It includes the summaries of "Cronache Ercolanesi" and there is an extensive bibliography. This website requires Flash. The first owner of the villa appears to have been Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, but other names have been suggested. Several texts in the library were written by members of the Epicurean school of philosophy. It is known that Piso Caesoninus was a supporter of the school and he probably hosted Philodemus of whom he may have been patron. The first person to open the charred papyri and read from them was father Antonio Piaggio, an expert from the Vatican Library who invented a device for the purpose. Large parts of the villa are yet to be excavated, including the supposed Latin library. Only a few texts have been read so far given their poor state of preservation; some of the papyri were already centuries old on 79 AD, when the villa was destroyed by the eruption of the Vesuvius."