Pompeii_ House of Meleager, No. 5072 c. 1880 - 1890

Editor: So, here we have an albumen print titled "Pompeii, House of Meleager, No. 5072" by Giacomo Brogi, taken sometime between 1880 and 1890. The stark image of these ancient columns...it evokes a sense of ghostly permanence, doesn’t it? What do you make of its quiet power? Curator: Quiet power, I like that! It does possess a certain stoicism. You know, seeing these ruins, caught so beautifully in that warm-toned albumen, it always gets me thinking about time, layers upon layers of history. We’re not just looking at an architectural record but also at Brogi’s record of rediscovery, filtered through a late 19th-century lens, of course. Almost like looking through two sets of eyes. What details capture *your* eye? Editor: Definitely the contrast between the very ruined walls in the background and the more intact, standing columns, and how the light hits some more than others. It kind of makes me wonder, were the columns more exposed and more accessible than the inner house when Brogi came upon this site? Curator: An interesting observation, certainly. Perhaps the columns had become landmarks by then. Think about the Victorian fascination with the classical world. For Brogi, capturing these images was as much about documenting as it was about, dare I say, curating a visual experience for his contemporaries. It’s a reminder of their connection with antiquity, you see? These fallen empires resonate so much with that era. But what of us today? Do these columns still resonate? Editor: I think they do. There's a timelessness to them. The image is from the 1880s, and it represents an ancient building, but you could have shown it to me without that information and I still would have gotten a melancholy feeling from it. Curator: Indeed! And who knows? Perhaps someone will feel similarly a century from now, looking at *our* record of them. It's like history holding up a mirror to itself, over and over. Editor: It really makes you think, thanks!