Reviewed by: Lost Worlds of Ancient and Modern Greece: Gilbert Bagnani: The Adventures of a Young Italo-Canadian Archaeologist in Greece, 1921–1924 by D. J. Ian Begg Natalia Vogeikoff-Brogan (bio) D. J. Ian Begg, Lost Worlds of Ancient and Modern Greece: Gilbert Bagnani: The Adventures of a Young Italo-Canadian Archaeologist in Greece, 1921–1924. Oxford: Archaeopress Publishing, 2020. Pp. xxxvii + 309. 5 maps, 14 illustrations. Hardcover £25.00. Gilbert Bagnani, an Italo-Canadian of privileged origin, came to Greece in late 1921 as a student of the Italian School of Archaeology. Greece had been at war with Turkey since 1919, but what originally looked to be a victorious Greek campaign resulted in one of the country's greatest calamities. Bagnani [End Page 260] witnessed life in Greece before and after the Asia Minor Catastrophe of 1922. What makes his case special is that, unlike other students of foreign archaeological schools in Athens, his intellectual curiosity reached far beyond the ivory tower of academia. Socially charismatic, he was quickly admitted to the best salons of local society. His personal papers at Trent University contain long letters to his mother that describe, with flair and in great detail, his social interactions. Based on what Bagnani learned, he composed and published acute political reports in the British Morning Post. Archaeologist Ian Begg, the author of Lost Worlds, not only struck gold when he came across Bagnani's personal papers but was able to mine the rich raw material in this archive and turn it into a fascinating history book. The book consists of 24 chapters, not including the introduction, prologue, and epilogue. The introduction provides the reader with biographical information about Bagnani's early years. Born in 1900, he was raised in a cosmopolitan environment in England and Italy that gave him access to distinguished people. An only child, he maintained a close relationship with his Canadian mother after the death of his Italian father in 1917. A broad timeline and a few maps, including one that marks locations referred to in Bagnani's letters, provide useful aids for the reader. Begg follows his introduction with a prologue, titled "Odysseus vs. Achilles," in which he summarizes lucidly the political situation in Greece after the Great War, discussing the ambiguous role of the Allies during the Greek-Turkish War of 1919–1922 while painting with broad brush strokes the portraits of archrivals Prime Minister Eleutherios Venizelos and King Constantine I. Chapter 1, a fast-forward in the narrative, describes the Great Fire and destruction of Smyrna on 13 September 1922. The story is told again in greater detail in chapter 15. Bagnani enters the scene in chapter 2 with his arrival in Athens nine months earlier, in December of 1921. Among his companions at the Italian School, one name stands out, that of Doro Levi, who would later become the most important Italian archaeologist in Greece. Bagnani wasted no time with the expatriate community, which he found stifling. In the next two chapters, we find him attending one of the fanciest balls in town in the presence of the Greek royal family and striking up friendships with older and younger members of the most distinguished families of Athens, who found him engaging and knowledgeable enough to invite him regularly to their gatherings. Begg is to be praised for providing ample biographical information about the people Bagnani encountered, especially the women (hard to trace since they took their husbands' names). Naturally, Bagnani's [End Page 261] social life included interactions not only with Greek archaeologists, such as Alexander Philadelpheus, but also with members of other foreign schools such as Alan Wace and Stanley Casson of the British School and Bert H. Hill and Carl Blegen of the American School. Chapters 5 and 6 explore Bagnani's role as an undercover correspondent for the Morning Post. Despite his royalist leanings, he maintained access to both royal and Venizelist circles, thus adopting a bipartisan approach in his articles, which he never signed. Through Bagnani's comprehensive letters to his mother, his political essays, and Begg's narrative, the reader gains a firsthand understanding of the emerging tension between the Greek government and the Allies...
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Sep 14, 2024
Stephanie Fearon 
Open Access
