DOS Pompeii, the secret cabinet, or how to deal with sex

Abstract

In this paper we deal with sex, that is, sexual intercourse and other explicit sexual acts that embarrassed people dealing with material evidence and arts coming from Pompeii and the Vesuvian area. We start by exploring some epistemological issues relating to looking for differences in the past. Next, we present a brief history of the Cabinet. Then we turn to a couple of iconographic and epigraphic evidences and explore their interpretive potential. In this sense, we argument that the secret cabinet reveals the embarrassment caused since the 18th century by the discovery of iconography and epigraphy relating to explicit sexual activities. Fact that led early on to lead to secrecy and restriction of access up to the end of the 20th century. The last few decades witnessed a lot of changes in perception and there has been a growing body of scholarship pledging for recognizing differences of perception, including aesthetic ones. For the Romans were different, and the case of the secret cabinet shows this clearly. The couple of evidences explored here enables us also to gather how iconography and epigraphy are interwoven and gain when studied in tandem and in historical and cultural context. And finally, the wider access to the secret cabinet, since 2000, opens new opportunities to the lay public and contribute to foster a critical scholarly approach to this collection.