While the pandemic brought lockdown to millions around the world, as well as dire sickness and countless deaths, for celebrated Italian archaeological photographer Luigi Spina it was something of a gift. Pompeii, buried by metres of volcanic detritus during the great eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD and accidentally found by workers digging a canal in 1599, was closed to the public during COVID-19. Without the throng of visitors to the UNESCO site, new conservation of houses closed for decades ensued. Spina, armed with a Hasselblad H6D 100 C, a camera bound to make any photographer green with envy ($AU58,000 on special in a Google search if you’re aiming to look), he endeavoured to capture a human quality in Pompeian homes, many never seen by the public. 

The result is an exceptional 480-page tome, Inside Pompeii by Luigi Spina, published by Thames & Hudson in 2023, containing hundreds of superb images of Pompeii. Spina selected 38 of these images for exhibition in Australia under the banner of the European Union (EU), now on show at Wanneroo Regional Art Gallery. Gabriele Visentin, EU Ambassador to Australia in Canberra, says the exhibition underlines the timeless nature of human experience. Of the EU’s role in Inside Pompeii, Visentin says, “the exchange of cultural knowledge, traditions and art between the EU and international partners is key to fostering mutual respect and understanding, which creates peace and stability around the world.”

City of Wanneroo Mayor Linda Aitken is clearly thrilled to have secured the exhibition especially for Wanneroo, but also for the wider community in Western Australia. “It’s really exciting to me to see the colour, the visuals and the stillness within it as well as a seriousness in understanding that people there were living life and in a moment of time it just changed. I would really like to see our schools come and have a look at this when they’re learning about ancient history and get some reality of what it was actually like.” 

Indeed, Luigi Spina writes in Inside Pompeii that nothing prepared him for what he would see at Pompeii, with “Vesuvius towering over everything.” He says it is a glimpse of other people’s lives through a fissure in time: ”I listened to the rhythm of a city that has ceased to exist, yet which still conceals traces of those who lived here, who thought, perhaps only for an instant, right before they took their last breath, that for better or worse it was simply the place where they had been born and where they lived.”

Evident in Spina’s images is a compulsive quest by Pompeian residents to depict beauty in frescoes, many smudged or damaged not only by the effects of time, but by Vesuvius’ explosive eruption nearly two thousand years ago. Surprising is the variety and preservation of mosaic floors, seemingly impervious to the violent pyroclastic final surge of the eruption – a deadly wave of volcanic gas and debris moving at over 200 kilometres an hour with temperatures estimated at 300 degrees Celsius, which literally killed around 2000 inhabitants, and everything else in its path, in an instant. 

Featured in the exhibition is the property of wealthy widow Julia Felix, with Vesuvius poignantly located in the background. Julia was exceptional for her time, being female and wealthy. She converted parts of her estate into rental apartments, shops and public baths, capitalising on Pompeii’s growing demand. 

Leah Robbie, curator at Wanneroo Regional Art Gallery, says life in 79 AD wasn’t all that different to today. “Pompeii’s enduring influence on contemporary culture still plays a part in inspiring art, cinema and literature.” There is no doubt Spina’s images, produced through a visual arts lens, will continue to inspire interest in the site, as well as deepen the importance of its preservation and restoration far into the future.  

Inside Pompeii is on show at Wanneroo Regional Art Gallery until 4 October. Entry is free.