villa, giving the plan executed by Weber and recovered by chance by the director of excavations, Michele Ruggiero. This plan, which is here reproduced from de Petra[1] is the only satisfactory document for the topography of Herculaneum; for the plan of the theatre published in the Bullettino archeologico italiano (Naples, 1861, i. 53, tab. iii.) was executed in 1747, when the excavations were not completed. And even for the history of the “finds” made in the Villa Suburbana the necessity for further studies makes itself felt, since there is a lack of agreement between the accounts given by Alcubierre and Weber and those communicated to the Philosophical Transactions (London, vol. x.) by Camillo Paderni, conservator of the Portici Museum.
Among the older works relating to Herculaneum, in addition to those already quoted, may be mentioned de Brosses, Lettre sur l’état actuel de la ville souterraine d’Héracléa (Paris, 1750); Seigneux de Correvon, Lettre sur la découverte de l’ancienne ville d’Herculane (Yverdon, 1770); David, Les Antiquités d’Herculaneum (Paris, 1780); D’ Ancora Gaetano, Prospetto storico-fisico degli scavi d’ Ercolano e di Pompei (Naples, 1803); Venuti, Prime Scoverte di Ercolano (Rome, 1748); and Romanelli, Viaggio ad Ercolano (Naples, 1811). A full list will be found in vol. i. of Museo Borbonico (Naples, 1824), pp. 1-11.
The most important reference work is C. Waldstein and L. Shoobridge, Herculaneum, Past, Present and Future (London, 1908); it contains full references to the history and the explorations, and to the buildings and objects found (with illustrations). Miss E. R. Barker’s Buried Herculaneum (1908) is exceedingly useful.
In 1904 Professor Waldstein expounded both in Europe and in America an international scheme for thorough investigation of the site. Negotiations of a highly complex character ensued with the Italian government, which ultimately in 1908 decided that the work should be undertaken by Italian scholars with Italian funds. The work was begun in the autumn of 1908, but financial difficulties with property owners in Resina immediately arose with the result that progress was practically stopped. (F. B.)
HERCULANO DE CARVALHO E ARAUJO, ALEXANDRE
(1810–1877), Portuguese historian, was born in Lisbon of humble stock, his grandfather having been a foreman stonemason in the
royal employ. He received his early education, comprising
Latin, logic and rhetoric, at the Necessidades Monastery, and
spent a year at the Royal Marine Academy studying mathematics
with the intention of entering on a commercial career. In 1828
Portugal fell under the absolute rule of D. Miguel, and Herculano,
becoming involved in the unsuccessful military pronunciamento
of August 1831, had to leave Portugal clandestinely and take
refuge in England and France. In 1832 he accompanied the
Liberal expedition to Terceira as a volunteer, and was one of
D. Pedro’s famous army of 7500 men who landed at the Mindello
and occupied Oporto. He took part in all the actions of the great
siege, and at the same time served as a librarian in the city
archives. He published his first volume of verses, A Voz de
Propheta, in 1832, and two years later another entitled A Harpa
do Crente. Privation had made a man of him, and in these
little books he proves himself a poet of deep feeling and considerable
power of expression. The stirring incidents in the political
emancipation of Portugal inspired his muse, and he describes
the bitterness of exile, the adventurous expedition to Terceira,
the heroic defence of Oporto, and the final combats of liberty.
In 1837 he founded the Panorama in imitation of the English
Penny Magazine, and there and in Illustração he published the
historical tales which were afterwards collected into Lendas e
Narratives; in the same year he became royal librarian at the
Ajuda Palace, which enabled him to continue his studies
of the past. The Panorama had a large circulation and influence,
and Herculano’s biographical sketches of great men
and his articles of literary and historical criticism did much to
educate the middle class by acquainting them with the story
of their nation, and with the progress of knowledge and the
state of letters in foreign countries. On entering parliament
in 1840 he resigned the editorship to devote himself to history,
but he still remained its most important contributor.
Up to the age of twenty-five Herculano had been a poet, but he then abandoned poetry to Garrett, and after several essays in that direction he definitely introduced the historical novel into Portugal in 1844 by a book written in imitation of Walter Scott. Eurico treats of the fall of the Visigothic monarchy and the beginnings of resistance in the Asturias which gave
- ↑ The diagram shows the arrangement and proportions of the Villa Ercolanese. The dotted lines show the course taken by the excavations, which began at the lower part of the plan.
