Andrea De Jorio (1769–1851) was an Italian

antiquarian An antiquarian or antiquary () is an aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artefacts, archaeological and historic si ...

who is remembered today among ethnographers as the first ethnographer of

body language Body language is a type of nonverbal communication in which physical behaviors, as opposed to words, are used to express or convey information. Such behavior includes facial expressions, body posture, gestures, eye movement, touch and the use o ...

, in his work ''La mimica degli antichi investigata nel gestire napoletano'', 1832 ("The

mime A mime artist, or simply mime (from Greek language, Greek , , "imitator, actor"), is a person who uses ''mime'' (also called ''pantomime'' outside of Britain), the acting out of a story through body motions without the use of speech, as a the ...

of the Ancients investigated through Neapolitan gesture"). The work has been mined, refined and criticized. Born on the island of Procida in the

Gulf of Naples The Gulf of Naples (), also called the Bay of Naples, is a roughly 15-kilometer-wide (9.3 mi) gulf located along the south-western coast of Italy (Metropolitan City of Naples, Campania region). It opens to the west into the Mediterranean ...

, De Jorio became a

Canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the material accepted as officially written by an author or an ascribed author * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western canon, th ...

at the

Cathedral of Naples The Naples Cathedral (; ), or the Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary (), is a Roman Catholic cathedral, the main church of Naples, southern Italy, and the seat of the Archbishop of Naples. It is widely known as the Cathedral of Saint Januarius ...

, a respected

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

under the pre-modern conditions of his times, and a curator at the predecessor to the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples. He wrote very extensively about the then-recent excavations of

classical antiquity Classical antiquity, also known as the classical era, classical period, classical age, or simply antiquity, is the period of cultural History of Europe, European history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD comprising the inter ...

near Naples, such as

Pompeii Pompeii ( ; ) was a city in what is now the municipality of Pompei, near Naples, in the Campania region of Italy. Along with Herculaneum, Stabiae, and Villa Boscoreale, many surrounding villas, the city was buried under of volcanic ash and p ...

Herculaneum Herculaneum is an ancient Rome, ancient Roman town located in the modern-day ''comune'' of Ercolano, Campania, Italy. Herculaneum was buried under a massive pyroclastic flow in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Like the nearby city of ...

, and

Cumae Cumae ( or or ; ) was the first ancient Greek colony of Magna Graecia on the mainland of Italy and was founded by settlers from Euboea in the 8th century BCE. It became a rich Roman city, the remains of which lie near the modern village of ...

. His recognition in the frescos of

and

provided him with his insight, that the gestures depicted were familiar to him in the streets of modern

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

. The book stressed the continuity from Classical times to the present by showing the similarity between hand gestures depicted on ancient Greek vases found near Naples and the gestures of modern Neapolitans. "Its a doubtful premise of a time-honored continuity" in culture has retreated to the confines of sentimental writings on Neapolitan cuisine, but De Jorio was among the first ethnographers to venture into the field, producing the first scholarly investigation of Neapolitan hand gestures; it remains the source literature for more recent treatments of the topic, both scholarly and popular. The volume has been reprinted three times photostatically in Italian in recent years—1964, 1979, and 2002—and recently (2000) in a scholarly and annotated English translation by Adam Kendon as ''Andrea de Jorio: Gesture in Naples and Gesture in Classical Antiquity'' (Indiana University Press, 2000).The English translation was well received, both of which praise the original as well as the erudite translation, which includes an 80-page essay/introduction. a review is "The Neapolitan Finger" by Joan Acocella in ''The New York Review of Books'' (2000) and in ''Sign Language Studies'', a journal published by Gallaudet University in 2002. The other review is by Giovanna Ceserani of Princeton University; it appeared in the ''Bryn Mawr Classical Review'' in 2003; it was also extensively reviewed by Herman Roodenburg for ''Semiotica'' no. 144 (2006) pp. 443–445.

Notes

1769 births 1851 deaths Scholars from the Kingdom of Naples Antiquarians 18th-century Neapolitan people Italian archaeologists Italian ethnographers 19th-century Neapolitan people {{ethnographer-stub