By Eric Butler
Since Jan. 20, U of L’s Covi Gallery has been masquerading as an ancient Roman cemetery.
The art gallery’s latest exhibit, titled “Memoria: Roman Funerary Monuments from the Speed Art Museum,” was organized by Art History and Humanities professor Linda Gigante with the help of her fall 2004 “Death and Burial in Ancient Rome” graduate seminar students. For the show, they selected over 35 epitaphs, ash urns, burial gifts and other grave goods originally crafted for deceased working-class Romans over 1,800 years ago.
The items were purchased in 1911 from the Church of Santa Teresa D’Avila, which discovered the morbid cache during the church’s construction a decade earlier. The buyer, a Louisvillian named Rogers Clark Ballard Thruston, donated the pieces to the Speed Art Museum in 1929, and since then they have been held in the museum’s on-site storage facility. Gigante said this exhibit is the first time these Roman antiquities have been put up for public viewing since they arrived at the Speed.
And it’s been done, in large part, thanks to the “Death and Burial” seminar.
As a finale to the class’ semester-long research project, “Memoria” gives viewers a summation of the lessons learned in the class last fall. Gigante’s students were integral in the exhibit’s curatorial process, selecting the pieces to be included in the show, translating their Latin inscriptions and writing the text panels and labels describing ancient Roman burial practices, society and family life.
Gigante was pleased that her class was able to study and work with these unique artifacts as a complement to the course. She hopes exhibiting their research at the Covi will inspire future collaborations between the Speed Museum and university classrooms, so that students can gain more firsthand experience in the topics they are studying.
Museum Director Peter Morrin welcomed the recent collaboration, and said the Speed has long held a major commitment to supporting research by faculty and students.
As for the antiquities being left in storage for so long – according to Gigante, it’s been 76 years since they’ve been exhibited – Speed Museum spokesperson Lonna Versluys said it’s nothing unusual. She said the museum currently holds over 13,000 items in storage, and that artworks are put there because of space limitations in the museum and also to protect them from overexposure to harsh elements like light, moisture and temperature, which can be damaging. The pieces are usually rotated back into public view when space and relevancy permits, but always remain accessible to individuals who desire to study them, even if the pieces are being stored.
For the next three weeks, at least, the exposure issue is irrelevant. These ancient Roman burial goods are now being exhibited publicly, and anyone interested in viewing the collection should take advantage of the opportunity.
The Covi Gallery is located in Schneider Hall on U of L’s Belknap campus. Hours are Monday-Friday 9 a.m.-4 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m.-2 p.m. and Sunday 1-6 p.m. “Memoria: Roman Funerary Monuments from the Speed Art Museum” will continue through Feb. 20, and is free and open to the public.
