Jole Bovio Marconi

Jole Bovio
Born	January 21, 1897 Rome
Died	April 14, 1986 Palermo
Nationality	Italian
Alma mater	Sapienza University of Rome, Italian School of Archaeology at Athens
Spouse(s)	Pirro Marconi, married 1926–1938
Children	Marina Marconi Causi
Scientific career
Fields	archaeology, prehistory
Institutions	Regional Archeological Museum Antonio Salinas, University of Palermo

Jole Bovio Marconi (Italian pronunciation: [ˈjɔːle ˈbɔːvjo marˈkoːni])^[a] (January 21, 1897 in Rome – April 14, 1986 in Palermo) was an Italian archaeologist who graduated with a degree in the topography of ancient Rome from the Sapienza University of Rome^[1] and specialized at the Italian School of Archaeology at Athens.^[2] She married her colleague Pirro Marconi,^[2] whom she met in her studies in Athens.

In the 1920s she moved to Sicily, centering her work on its classical monuments.^[1] In 1939 she became the archaeological superintendent for western Sicily.^[3]

She devoted herself to writing some publications on the civilization of the Conca d'Oro ('Golden Valley'), the fertile plain among mountains where Sicily's capital city Palermo is situated, and of the Grotta del Vecchiuzzo in Madonie Regional Natural Park. She remained the director of the Archaeological Superintendency of Western Sicily from the 1930s to the 1960s. During World War II she took charge of moving the exhibits kept at Palermo's Regional Archeological Museum Antonio Salinas by personally relocating them to the convent of San Martino delle Scale in Monreale; in view of the great devastation that the museum suffered, this allowed them to save the greater part of the collection.^[1]

Temple E, Selinunte

Paleolithic graffiti of Addaura

At the end of the war she was in charge of the museum's reconstruction and reorganization, so much so that if Antonio Salinas is the one who created the museum, Jole Bovio Marconi is considered the one who created it anew. She excavated and studied the Upper Paleolithic Grotta del Genovese on Levanzo in the Egadi Islands and Grotta dell'Addaura near Palermo (published in 1953). She was entrusted with the chair of prehistory at the University of Palermo,^[1] and she took charge of the restoration of the temple of Segesta. She planned and realized the anastylosis of Temple E in Selinunte. In 1963 she published the first paper on the late Neolithic to early Bronze Age Bell Beaker ware of Sicily, "Sulla diffusione del vaso campaniforme in Sicilia" (Kokalos 9, pp. 93–128).^[4] In recognition of this work, the archaeologists Jean Guilaine, Sebastiano Tusa, and Primo Veneroso dedicated to her memory the paper La Sicile et l'Europe Campaniforme,^[5] with funds from the Collège de France.

Notes

1. Jole is a variant spelling of the Greek name Iole.

References

1. Pomar, Anna. "Marconi Bovio Jole (1897 - 1986)". Sito istituzionale per i 150 anni dell'Unità d'Italia (in Italian). Retrieved September 24, 2014.
2. Privitera, Santo (2007). "Marconi, Pirro". Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (in Italian). Vol. 69. Treccani.it. Retrieved September 24, 2014.
3. Tusa, Vincenzo. "Jole Bovio Marconi, - 1986" (PDF). Breaking Ground. Translated by Michelle Hobart. Brown University. Retrieved September 24, 2014.
4. Mottes, Elisabetta; Nicolis, Franco; Ruggiero, Maria Giuseppina; Salvadori, Laura (2008). "Italian Bell Beaker Bibliography". Bell Beaker in everyday life. Proceedings of the 10th meeting, "Archéologie et gobelets". Florence: Museo Fiorentino di Preistoria Paolo Graziosi. p. 408. Retrieved November 13, 2018.
5. Guilaine, Jean; Tusa, Sebastiano; Veneroso, Primo (2009). La Sicile et l'Europe campaniforme: la collection Veneroso à Sciacca. Toulouse: Archives d'Écologie Préhistorique. ISBN 9782358420006.