In the Victorian period souvenir collecting was as popular a pastime for travelers and tourists as it is now. But instead of keychains, shot glasses, or t-shirts, it was common for tourists to take home actual pieces of the things they saw, including architectural elements hacked off historic buildings. Obtaining and displaying these items provided collectors with evidence of their worldliness and cultural sophistication. The piece of carved marble pictured above is perhaps one of those items.In 1836 during her Grand Tour of Europe, a teenaged Frances Appleton spent time traveling in Italy. Among the spots she visited was “Cicero’s Tomb”, a ruin in Formia, located between Rome and Naples. While there she recorded “picking a relic from the reputed Tomb of Cicero.” What the relic was is unknown, but it was not the only piece of a Cicero-related Roman structure she brought back to the United States. Later in the trip she received a gift from a Mr. Nesmith, which was explained in a letter reading “Mr. Nesmith takes the liberty to ask you to accept this piece of marble, which was taken with his own hands from one of the columns of Cicero's villa - not knowing the particular taste of Miss A., not daring to do more adornment.”
Although socially acceptable during Fanny Appleton’s lifetime, relic hunting today is strongly discouraged, and in many cases illegal, as in National Parks! Such activity causes further degradation of historic sites and natural resources and has many ethical implications regarding cultural ownership.