Verso Roma dopo la Restaurazione. Efisio Luigi Tocco, l'archeologia e l'architettura

Marco Cadinu

2018-01-01

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Abstract

In the cultural community of Rome, center of international interests in the twenties and thirties of the nineteenth century, Efisio Luigi Tocco trained and lived his first experiences as an architect and archaeologist. He studied Roman antiquity and the classics and wrote over sixty articles and monographs by 1874. He was a citizen of Cagliari and lived for over fifty years in Rome where he became friend with important cultural figures of the time. He founded an original Archaeological Excavation Company, and explored Lazio estates of important aristocratic families. According to classical principles, he designed the first aqueducts for Cagliari and Sassari, then a suspension bridge, supported by specialized companies of capital and business. Countered in his homeland, he rightly denounced the presence of over two-hundred fake ancient bronzes in the Royal Archaeological Museum of Cagliari, and therefore faced an scientific exile- In its late years, also as a member of the Roman Superintendence of Excavations and Antiquities and Conservation of Monuments, he challenged the interventionist political forces of the new Italian capital to defend the ancient heritage, its true reason for living.