The volcanic eruption of 79 AD dramatically interrupted all forms of life in Pompeii. The city, in a few hours, was completely covered by several layers of lapilli and volcanic sand up to a layer of ashes, for a height of about six meters. Many Pompeiians were crushed by the roofs that collapsed under the weight of the lapilli, while others died from the poisoning gases emanating from Vesuvius. Moving is the description of the events in the two letters that Pliny the Younger wrote to Tacitus, a Roman historian, about the heroic death of his uncle Pliny the Elder. He was then in command of the fleet stationed in Miseno; having seen the eruptive phenomenon from afar he had moved with the ships towards the Vesuvius area, both out of curiosity as a scientist, and to give aid to those who had been overwhelmed by the tragic event , but in such generous momentum he fell victim to the gaseous fumes too . Pliny's words are matched by the casts that have been drawn from the victims who appear in the most heartbreaking attitudes, caught by death while attempting an extreme escape, sheltering with a piece of clothing from the noxious fumes, of carrying a precious object or a hoard of coins with them in the escape. The area remained deserted, hiding the effects of the tragedy for about 17 centuries. The discovery of Pompeii is due to the excavation of a tunnel under the hill of the "Civita" made by the architect Domenico Fontana, between 1594 and 1600, for conveying the waters of the Sarno river. In the excavation phases, despite the emergence of inscriptions and buildings with frescoed walls, it wasn’t considered appropriate to expand the exploration. Only in 1748, 10 years after the beginning of the excavations of Herculaneum, under the reign of Charles of Bourbon, the first real exploration began; in 1763, outside Porta Ercolano, the discovery of a stone with the engraving of a decree by Vespasian removed all doubts about Pompeii. The works boosted in the first half of the 19th century, as most of the public buildings and some large private buildings were brought to light between 1806 and 1832. In 1860 with the direction of the excavation work entrusted to Giuseppe Fiorelli, a phase of systematic and rational excavations began. Among other things, he first obtained the victims footprints and plaster casts, pouring liquid plaster into the gap produced in the ash bank by the organic decomposition of the bodies and the subdivision of the urban area into REGIONES (neighborhoods) and INSULAE (isolated).
