A Working Roman Holiday
Posted: 11/14/07

If you think that spending two weeks digging a hole in the
Australian outback or reading in a library in Italy is a
boring way to spend your vacation, think again. According
to Dennis Fox, a retired high school teacher and Basking
Ridge resident, “Those were the most intellectually
stimulating vacations I have ever experienced.” Actually,
they were not vacations in the traditional sense; they
were research expeditions sponsored by Earthwatch
Institute, a Massachusetts organization that connects
volunteers with scientists doing cutting edge research
around the globe.

Having spent one summer tracking honey ants and koala bear
tracks in Australia some years ago, Fox decided to again
join an Earthwatch exploration in 2004. But this time he
chose a more sedentary project, that of studying ancient
texts in the Italian National Library in Rome. The study
took place at the height of tourist season in July and
involved ten volunteers (two men and eight women) plus the
director of the project and his wife. Dr. Alain Touwaide
of the Smithsonian had been working on the Medicinal
Plants of Antiquity project for years. His wife, Emanuel
Appetiti, an ethnobotanist, is Roman native and thus an
outstanding tour guide for the group.

The main work of the team was working with rare books from
the Renaissance period. Dr. Touwaide has been gathering
the medicinal plant lore of classical antiquity, from the
eight century B.C. to the third century A.D. and plans to
publish the data on ancient plant uses and plant
identification soon. These rare printings were trundled
out in carts for the group.
Fox recalled the feeling in working with his first
assigned book. “I could hardly believe I was holding a
book printed in 1492. It was a relatively short Latin and
Greek language commentary by Nicolai Leonieni on the work
of Pliny.” His job was to accurately describe
bibliographic and pagination information for each book, an
essential task since Renaissance printers did not usually
use the page numbering system in effect today.
Eight of the team’s ten working days were spent in the
library cataloging the contents of Renaissance texts.
Volunteers produced an inventory of the plant descriptions
and illustrations in each book. Although the books were
in Latin and ancient Greek, it was not necessary to have a
working knowledge of those languages. The quality of the
plant illustrations was eye-popping, said Fox, and he was
amazed at how much the ancients knew about the plant world.

“At Earthwatch you feel that you are making a real
contribution to scientific investigation. And besides
that, you meet wonderful people who have similar
interests.” Each volunteer pays a fee that covers
housing, most meals and other costs integral to the
project. However, volunteers pay for their own plane fare
to the expedition site (which means they fly independently
and can add extra days to their trip if they want).
Housing in Rome was in shared rooms in a clean, simple,
air-conditioned Bed & Breakfast that occupied the entire
fifth floor of a restored building within a short walk to
the historic Roman Forum. A continental breakfast was
available at the B&B, and the team took lunch at a nearby
café. The group ate their evening meal at a typical Roman
Trattoria adjacent to the B&B. The full menu was
available and Dr. Touwaide arranged for some special
dishes including a delicious potato gnocchi and “fiori di
zucca” (fried squash blossoms). Pizza was also available,
but because pepperoni means peppers in Italian, if a
pepperoni pizza was desired, it was necessary to order
salame piccante.

Not all the daytime was spent in the library, for there
were several project-related activities during the two
weeks in Rome. One afternoon was spent touring the
restored medicinal plant gardens of a monastery in Rome.
Two days were used for field trips to the ancient ruins of
Ostia Antica, Rome’s original seaport, where the team was
given access to areas with mosaics and frescos with plant
representations. Using public transportation to get there
proved to be a bit of an adventure when a portion of the
Roman metro was shut down. Periodic inconveniences in
Rome are not uncommon. There was a one day work stoppage
by bus drivers, and the air conditioning and some
electrical outlets in the library were an on again, off
again proposition.
With careful scheduling it was possible to include a fair
amount of sightseeing in the city. After dinner, there
were often walking tours of various neighborhoods. The
group attended two staged operas (in local churches) and
an outdoor symphony concert in a huge square where three
thousand people listened to Respighi’s “The Pines of Rome”
fill the evening air.

The one weekend between the two “work weeks” was free
time, so one could shop, sightsee or just relax. “I saw
plenty of the Coliseum, and got to St. Peter’s, but never
made it to the Vatican Museum.” says Fox. “However I did
enjoy my time in the Irish Pub down the street from the
B&B, which was a magnet for English speaking visitors from
around the world”.

The Earthwatch Institute provides thousands of volunteers
in support of more than 280 scientists in 49 countries.
Projects include measuring snow pack density in Churchill,
Manitoba, tracking koala bears in the eucalypt woodlands
of Queensland, Australia; or excavating a pueblo ruin in
Arizona. And once in a while, a quiet library job comes up
too. For Information, contact: Earthwatch Institute, 3
Clock Tower Place, Suite 100, Box 75, Maynard, MA 01754-
0075. Tel. (800) 776-0188. Website: www.earthwatch.org.
Copyright 2005, Barbara Hudgins