The Library of the Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum

$40.00 at The Getty Museum.

David Sider The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii in CE 79 also buried nearby Herculaneum. Over time the location of the small town was forgotten, but shortly after its rediscovery in the 1730s, "excavations"―more properly, treasure hunts―were organized to unearth ancient sculpture. The richest finds were from a villa that came to be called the Villa dei Papiri, because it also yielded upward of a thousand papyrus rolls―the only library ever to have been recovered from the classical world. To…