‘The aim of the excavations was not primarily to gain knowledge about the past, but to gain prestige for the present, and it is this that overwhelmingly influences the progress of the excavations throughout the rest of the 18th century”
‘It is hard to exaggerate his impact on the history of Pompeii…Fiorelli arguably remains the individual who had the greatest impact upon the way in which Pompeii has been both excavated and perceived’
-Alison Cooley
“For me archaeology is not a source of illustrations for written texts, but an independent source of historical information, with no less value and importance, sometimes more importance, that the written sources.”
Michael I. Rostovtzeff
"The robust campaign that Osanna has directed since 2014 marks a new era in old Pompeii, which earlier this decade suffered visibly from age, corruption, vandalism, climate change, mismanagement, underfunding, institutional neglect and collapses caused by downpours"
-Chiara Goia, Smithsonian 2019