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Pier Simone Marrocchesi is an Italian physicist. He graduated in Pisa and received his Ph.D. from Scuola Normale Superiore. After working for two decades in High Energy Physics experiments at CERN, he joined cosmic-ray research with balloon launches from Antarctica. At present, he is co-PI of an AstroParticle Physics experiment aboard the International Space Station. He is Professor of Physics and Director of the Department of Physical Sciences, Earth and Environment at the University of Siena. He is co-author of more than 400 scientific papers.
A fan of hard science fiction, this is his first novel under the pen name of Pier Marr.
The Pharaoh's vision
"All along the dark silhouette of the pyramid, the Pharaoh's gaze caressed the geometric perfection of a line that - by his own will - now connected the plain of Giza to the stars.
He knew quite well that his flesh was not the one of a god.
He knew equally well that such colossal work would ensure immortality to his name, but not to his flesh, nor to his spirit.
What, then, had been the point of being worshipped as a god if he had to watch the slow decline of his body helplessly?
Why had he not been given the power to break the inexorable cycle of life and death?
He thought that the gods would never allow a mortal to share such power with them. Perhaps, one day, humankind would succeed in profaning the secret of life, in changing his mortal condition forever.
He closed his eyes and sailed forward in time, imagining a civilization where aging would only be the memory of a disease defeated in the distant past. Not true immortals, perhaps, but young women and men who would retain the freshness of their bodies and minds for a long while.
Perhaps too long. The thought made him shiver. His long experience as the sovereign of the Upper and Lower Egypt made him well aware of the problem: holding such a civilization together would be a challenge probably doomed to failure."
by Pier Marr (unpublished)
Through the Wall of Time
Through the Wall of Time
Herculaneum, 79 AD - On the day of the historical Vesuvius eruption, some unusual artefacts were hidden within the mysterious Villa of the Papyri. They remained buried for centuries beneath a thick layer of mud and lava, until the mid-nineteenth century, when a young archaeologist named Oleg excavates them. The discovery changes his life, making him into a famous magician known throughout Europe. But at the height of his popularity, Oleg mysteriously disappears, leaving behind questions, enemies, and an assistant who is blamed for Oleg's thefts of valuable pieces of artwork.
Then a scientist named Heinrich stumbles across the artefacts Oleg left behind, seeks out Oleg's former assistant Irina, and the two embark together on a journey that leads them centuries into the future, when humanity has advanced beyond their wildest dreams.
In that future, Oleg is close to realizing his own dreams of true immortality, but despite myriad solutions, mankind's problems have multiplied. Only the unexpected help of someone he had once loved, then betrayed, will be able to save him.
WHAT'S BEHIND THE STORY
We all live busy lives pretending to ignore the worst of our problems: our short lifespan. Oleg reaches a distant future where humankind has broken free from the fate of ageing, a process largely governed by a genetic program, written in our cells, that controls the timing of our childhood, maturity, and progressive decline.
Pier Marr tries to figure out a society where scientific and technological progress has genetically reprogrammed the life cycle, changing the human condition forever. In a society with an average life expectancy boosted by a factor of two or more, a number of social problems have to be expected. In the author's vision, paradoxically the most serious one is not overpopulation, but rather the negative impact on society of individuals that remain active for too long in the absence of a natural limiting factor: an aquarium with long-lived predators getting increasingly stronger. "A hundred years old, they continue to marry, divorce, then mate again, and generate other children. They do not take care of them and let them grow on the street, like wild animals.”
The "Villa of the Papyri" in Hercolaneum
A sumptuous Roman villa was discovered in the Bourbon period in Herculaneum. It probably belonged to Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, father-in-law of Julius Caesar and consul in 58 BC.
The villa was initially explored from 1750 to 1765 through a network of tunnels that were dug in a compact layer of solidified mud lava about twenty meters deep. The excavations, carried out under the supervision of the Swiss engineer Karl Jakob Weber, led to the creation of a map of the villa. The first excavations allowed access to a rich library in which 1826 papyrus scrolls were found. The villa was named after them.
The huge villa is spread over multiple levels along a side parallel to the sea stretching for about 250 meters from an elegant round lookout. Continuing eastward, a large peristyle with 25 columns on the long sides, almost 100 meters long and with a central ornamental pool (natatio), was linked to a smaller peristyle of square shape via a room identified as tablinium (archive room). The eastern building hosting the accommodation facilities contained the library.
As of today, a large part of the villa is still buried and not completely explored.
[map from Wikipedia]
The library
Philodemus of Gadara, refined poet, author of elegant epigrams and philosopher of the Epicurean school, had arrived in Italy from Athens in the late first century BC and he had strong personal friendships with Piso Caesoninus. In the villa at Herculaneum, Philodemus had collected an impressive library with copies of his innumerable works, transcribed on papyrus scrolls, and writings of the masters of philosophical schools and of Epicureanism opponents. The alleged intention of Philodemus was to create a center of diffusion of the Epicurean philosophy in the context of an ideal refoundation in Italy of the Garden of Epicurus in Athens. In the elegant surroundings of the villa, Philodemus met with his friends in a cenaculum where they used to discuss the philosophy of Epicurus and to read his works.
The papyri
In the tunnels dug into the archeological site of the Villa of the Pisoni family, in addition to numerous sculptures of marble and bronze, the Bourbon excavators found blackened cylinder-shaped objects that looked like pieces of coal. Their first reaction was to throw them away as debris of no interest or as the remains of wooden structures. Fortunately, in a few broken rolls appeared traces of writing that revealed their nature of ancient books, transcribed on papyrus scrolls.
After the first trials to unroll the scrolls with disastrous results, various techniques were envisaged that have evolved to the present day. The method known as “scorzatura” consisted in wetting the rolls with hydro-alcoholic solutions, solvents and glutinous substances and then cut them into two semi-cylinders. The inner surface of the two portions was scratched to reveal a portion of readable text that was transcribed and then destroyed so to be able to uncover the underlying sheet. Only the outer layers of the two semi-cylinders, known as “peels” were preserved pasting them on a sheet of canvas or paper.
In 1753, father Antonio Piaggio invented a machine to unroll the papyri that has been in use until the early twentieth century. A portion of the outer surface of the papyrus was smeared with glue and a sheet of membrane, obtained from animal intestines, was connected with silk threads. The machine slowly exerted a gradual pull on the roll thanks to a series of keys to which the silk threads were connected.
A later method, dating back to the eighties, makes use use of a paste of gelatin and acetic acid of varying proportions in relation to the degree of carbonization of the papyrus. The several phases of the operation are accompanied by a photographic documentation of the original position of the pieces.
The black ink used to write the scrolls cannot be seen on the charred papyri, while infrared images of surface fragments have revealed Greek letters and symbols. Recently, several research groups have proposed to unroll the scrolls virtually, using X-ray phase-contrast tomography, possibly with a synchrotron light source. A recent breakthrough has been announced (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/secrets-ancient-herculaneum-scroll-deciphered-ai-rcna137960) where AI techniques were successfully employed to decipher large portions of text from 3D images obtained with a CT scan.
In addition to the writings of Philodemus, the recovered rolls have unveiled important Greek texts such as the famous work of Epicurus, The Nature, and the works of other Epicurean philosophers as Demetrius Laco, Polystrate, Carneisco, Colotes and Metrodorus both from Lampsacus, and the stoic Chrysippus. There are few works in Latin, including comedies, historical works, political and legal texts.
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