To Wake the Dead: A Renaissance Merchant and the Birth of Archaeology

By Marina Belozerskaya

Norton, $25.95, 308 pages

I took two or three archeology/anthropology courses as an undergraduate and not once was Cyriacus Pizzicolli of Ancona mentioned, despite the fact that he is apparently a “big deal.” Thankfully, Marina Belozerskaya has rescued this fascinating and influential man from the dustbin. Cyriacus was one of if not the first medieval man to look up at his surroundings and ask questions about all the ruins surrounding him. He was the first to ask “Why were these built, and by whom?” He was also the first to travel the Mediterranean uncovering, memorializing, and pushing to preserve these physical remnants of the past. Cyriacus pulled himself up out of mere merchant mediocrity to mingle with Popes, Princes, Kings, Emperors, and Sultans–the man even managed to get a Crusade started! Belozerskaya is an entertaining writer, if a little excitable and judgmental. When she isn’t cheering Pizzicolli for his 21st century morals she’s condemning him for his lack of them–as if a 15th century man can be held to modern standards? This merely distracts from an otherwise worthy work that successfully ties this obscure Italian into our understanding of Renaissance history.

Reviewed by Jonathon Howard