CAMPI FLEGREI – From 6 May 2024 to 30 June 2024, the Archaeological Museum of the Campi Flegrei in the Castello di Baia will be the stage for a fascinating exploration into the world of the alphabet and its impact on cultural processes in the ancient world. The exhibition “The painting of the voice. The alphabet before and after Cuma” invites the public to immerse themselves in the era in which the alphabet arrived on the Cuman shores, around 2700 years ago, brought as a dowry by the people coming from Greece. But where did that alphabet come from and what consequences did this arrival have on local communities? Towards which roads and forms did the characters brought from Euboea head? These questions, fascinating and crucial for understanding the evolution of the culture and society of ancient Italy, are answered in a series of objects on display, coming from the most important Italian archaeological museums, bearing inscriptions of various kinds, written with different but closely interconnected alphabets .
If “writing is the painting of the voice”, as Voltaire encouraged us to imagine, the exhibition draws inspiration from this statement. If the letters of an alphabet can be imagined as the colors in a painter’s palette, capable of composing and harmonizing in a figuration that is firstly mental and then phonetic, the exhibition uses the finds to draw the story of one of the most revolutionary and incisive cultural inventions in the history of humanity.
“The exhibition” declares Fabio Pagano, director of the Park“ was born from a project shared with Carlo Rescigno and Matilde Civitillo of the Luigi Vanvitelli University of Campania. The intent is to reiterate the central role of the Campi Flegrei as the driving force behind important cultural innovations in the ancient world, to reflect on the changes triggered when writing began to be the essential tool for passing on memory, but also to ask questions about the role of writing in today’s and tomorrow’s world.”
The exhibition, promoted with the fundamental support of the Campania Region, will be presented on 6 May and open to the public until 30 June 2024 at Castello di Baia.
