Scrolls from Pompeii
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Coming to the Italy Pavilion at World Showcase
Overview
Italy gets its long overdue ride with "Scrolls from Pompeii." It is located to the west of the plaza at the Italy pavilion in a space of trees. A backstage building has been relocated due to the project.
Queue
Although the Vatican Library is located in Rome, in keeping with the Venetian-design of the Italy pavilion, the show building is based on the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice. Inside, guests will walk through some exhibit halls of the Vatican Library, including Raphael’s Transfiguration, an almost 12-foot tall bronze Pine Cone sculpture from the 2nd Century, and Raphael’s The School of Athens.
Ride
Guests board an Omnimover vehicle. As guests make their way through a smaller copy of the Sistine Chapel with the elaborate paintings from MIchelangelo (but applied like wallpaper to keep costs down), they see a figure of a middle-aged priest (as an Audio Animatronic) wearing a traditional Roman collar. “I am Padre Antonio Piaggio, a Catholic priest. I was born in Genoa, Italy in the year 1713. I was appointed by His Holiness, Pope Benedict the 14th to be curator for the Vatican Library in Rome–the greatest public library in the world! There is so much we can learn from old manuscripts, and this LIbrary has so many! I studied under the greatest mentors of my time.”
Next, we see two clergymen wearing white robes–one middle-aged and thin and the other young and hefty. Padre Antonio continues: “I am also in debt to some great people who have gone before me–namely Saint Albert the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Albert was St. Thomas’ mentor. Although they were both great theologians, they also were great thinkers of reason; they loved the scientific method. For example, St. Albert would use mathematical calculations to study the planets. He also would test things in the natural world–minerals, plants, and animals–to come to important conclusions.”
“Now that I have told you a little bit about who I am and why I love learning, I am about to let you in on an inside fact. I have heard a rumor that something incredible may exist–many manuscripts made from papyrus were preserved in the explosion of Mount Vesuvius from the year 79. And here we are in the year 1752! Come along with me as I see whether this is true!”
In the next scene, we see Padre Antonio preparing for his 225-kilometer (or approximately 150 miles) journey in a carriage from Rome to Naples, where a team of researchers would meet. He does not know how long he will be gone. Besides all of his personal items and scholarly equipment, he must bring along a Mass kit to be able to say Mass every day.
As guests enter the next scene, they find themselves high up on a ridge overlooking an ancient city that is dwarfed by an erupting volcano. Padre Antonio tells guests that Mount Vesuvius erupted in the noon hour on August 24th of the year 79 AD. A 10-mile mushroom cloud shot up from the volcano and then it rained ash for the next 12 hours. Those who fled survived, although those who stayed in the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum died by the next morning.
In the next scene, Padre Antonio sees a set of the over 1700 carbonized scrolls (that look like charcoal) for the first time and begins to think how he will safely unroll them. He has been told that some of the manuscripts have been destroyed through poor extraction, whereas others that were thought just to be charcoal (i.e. carbonized tree branches) were accidentally discarded.
Next, Padre Antonio has created a machine that uses silk threads attached to the edge of the papyrus.to unroll the scrolls. He notes that it does damage the edge of the papyrus, but that it is the best he can do given the difficulty. Padre Antonio also mentions how slow it takes to unroll the scroll–a few millimeters a day means it took 4 years to unroll the first one! He has a team that copies down the words in the case that the text will permanently disappear now that it is exposed to the air.
In the final scene, Padre Antonio studies the scrolls to better understand what life was like in Pompeii prior to the Mt. Vesuvius eruption. “The scrolls have helped us to know the things that were of concern especially for the upper class of Pompeii in the 1st Century. It is the only complete library from that time period and there are many philosophical works in the collection.” He creates an illustration as to what the eruption would have looked like from the perspective of the people of Pompei. Padre Antonio concludes by thanking the guests for accompanying him on his journey. Upon reaching the disembark location, guests depart from their Omnimover vehicle and exit the ride.
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