“What Pompeii presents is thus the ruin of a reconstruction of a ruin, an intellectual nonsense. The visitor sees 20th-century concrete and steel rusting and collapsing. A re-erected column in the House of the Faun looks fit to fall again and is propped by scaffolding. Replicas abound. Ugly temporary roofs are jammed on top of courtyards, stripping them of ancient atmosphere or modern purpose. Only the streets seem fit for purpose.”