Lost Worlds of Ancient and Modern Greece: Gilbert Bagnani: The Adventures of a Young Italo-Canadian Archaeologist in Greece, 1921-1924 (Archaeological Lives)

By day, young Gilbert Bagnani studied archaeology in Greece, but by night he socialised with the elite of Athenian society. Secretly writing for the Morning Post in London, he witnessed both antebellum Athens in 1921 and the catastrophic collapse of Christian civilisation in western Anatolia in 1922. While there have been many accounts by refugees of the disastrous flight from Smyrna, few have been written from the perspective of the west side of the Aegean. The flood of a million refugees to Greece brought in its wake a military coup in Athens, the exile of the Greek royal family and the execution or imprisonment of politicians, whom Gilbert knew. Gilbert’s weekly letters to his mother in Rome reveal his Odyssey-like adventures on a voyage of discovery through the origins of western civilisation. As an archaeologist in Greece, he travelled through time seeing history repeat itself: Minoan Knossos, Byzantine Constantinople and Ottoman Smyrna were all violently destroyed, but the survivors escaped to the new worlds of Mycenaean Greece, Renaissance Venice and modern Greece. At Smyrna in the twentieth century, history was written not only by the victors but was also recorded by the victims. At the same time, however, the twentieth century itself was so filled with reports of ethnic cleansings on such a scale that the reports brutalized the humanity of the supposedly civilized people reading about them, and the tragedy of Smyrna disappeared from public awareness between the cataclysmic upheavals of the First and Second World Wars. Table of Contents Foreword – Prof. T. H. B. Symons Preface Acknowledgements Introduction Timeline Maps Prologue: Odysseus vs. Achilles Chapter 1. Vengeance Chapter 2. Back in Time Chapter 3. Imposing Ruins Chapter 4. Marble Sepulchres Chapter 5. The Arms Merchant and the Secret Agent Chapter 6. Foreign Correspondent Chapter 7. The Oracle of Apollo and St Paul Chapter 8. The Renaissance at a Byzantine Outpost Chapter 9. Exposed Chapter 10. The Knights of Rhodes Chapter 11. The King of Kos Chapter 12. Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea Chapter 13. Monasteries in the Air Chapter 14. In the Minotaur’s Labyrinth on Crete Chapter 15. Inferno Chapter 16. Executions Chapter 17. The Pharaoh’s Curse Chapter 18. The Castles of the Giant Cyclopes Chapter 19. A Surviving Byzantine Republic Chapter 20. Karpathos: The Island of Poseidon Chapter 21. Paradise Lost Chapter 22. Mission to the Underworld: Spying for Mussolini Chapter 23. Lost Greek Empires Chapter 24. The Land of the Golden Fleece Epilogue Figures Bibliography Index By day, young Gilbert Bagnani studied archaeology in Greece, but by night he socialised with the elite of Athenian society. Secretly writing for the Morning Post in London, he witnessed both antebellum Athens in 1921 and the catastrophic collapse of Christian civilisation in western Anatolia in 1922. While there have been many accounts by refugees of the disastrous flight from Smyrna, few have been written from the perspective of the west side of the Aegean. The flood of a million refugees to Greece brought in its wake a military coup in Athens, the exile of the Greek royal family and the execution or imprisonment of politicians, whom Gilbert knew. Gilbert’s weekly letters to his mother in Rome reveal his Odyssey-like adventures on a voyage of discovery through the origins of western civilisation. As an archaeologist in Greece, he travelled through time seeing history repeat itself: Minoan Knossos, Byzantine Constantinople and Ottoman Smyrna were all violently destroyed, but the survivors escaped to the new worlds of Mycenaean Greece, Renaissance Venice and modern Greece. At Smyrna in the twentieth century, history was written not only by the victors but was also recorded by the victims. At the same time, however, the twentieth century itself was so filled with reports of ethnic cleansings on such a scale that the reports brutalized the humanity of the supposedly civilized people reading about them, and the tragedy of Smyrna disappeared from public awareness between the cataclysmic upheavals of the First and Second World Wars. Cover 1 Title Page 3 Copyright Page 4 Dedication 5 Contents Page 7 Foreword 9 Preface 13 Acknowledgements 15 Introduction 19 Timeline 25 Maps 27 Prologue 32 Odysseus vs. Achilles 32 1. Vengeance 45 2. Back in Time 50 1. Italian School 53 2. Italian School and Acropolis from Olympieion 54 3. Imposing Ruins 63 4. Marble Sepulchres 73 3. Roman Agora 75 5. The Arms Merchant and the Secret Agent 92 6. Foreign Correspondent 103 7. The Oracle of Apollo and St. Paul 115 4. Delphi Marmaria tholos and treasuries 118 5. Gilbert Bagnani overseeing dig on South Slope 121 8. The Renaissance at a Byzantine Outpost 130 6. Mistra Pantanassa monastery 133 7. Mistra Ayia Sophia before restoration 136 8. Mt Ithome Monastery of Vourkano left to right: Gilbert Bagnani, monk, Doro Levi 138 9. Olympia Temple of Hera 140 10. Naupaktos harbour 142 11. Arta Ayia Theodora with bell tower 146 12. Orchomenos Skripou church 149 9. Exposed 150 10. In the Land of the Knights of Rhodes 158 11. The King of Kos 169 12. Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea 179 13. Smyrna and its harbor from Mt. Pagos 191 13. Monasteries in the Air 192 14. In the Minotaur’s Labyrinth on Crete 201 15. Inferno 211 16. Executions 225 17. The Pharaoh’s Curse 239 18. The Castles of the Giant Cyclopes 254 14. Left to right: Florence Bagnani, Verschoyle Blake and Gilbert Bagnani 258 19. A Surviving Byzantine Republic 266 20. Karpathos: The Island of Poseidon 276 21. Paradise Lost 285 22. Mission to the Underworld: Spying for Mussolini 297 23. Lost Greek Empires 310 24. Land of the Golden Fleece 323 Epilogue 335 List of Figures 339 Bibliography 340 Index 348 Back cover 354 Archaeopress Archaeological Lives Series,Gilbert Bagnani,Canadian archaeologist This book relates three years (1921-1924) in the life of Gilbert Bagnani, a young Italian archaeologist in Greece, based on his letters to his mother in Rome, at first as a non-partisan observer of, and later as an active participant in, some of the most tumultuous events in modern Greek history.