Andreas Vondiziano

When the colossal stone head turned up at Aghios Photios in March 1870, Luigi Palma di Cesnola was presiding over a meeting of the consular corps and Andrea Vondiziano rode out to the site in his place. Cesnola's Cyprus calls him "one of my consular employés, now Russian Consul in Cyprus"¹. A messenger from Vondiziano confirmed that the head was colossal and asked for two ox-carts. Cesnola adds that Vondiziano "had frequently served me on like occasions", and that the men dug on "under the superintendence of M. Vondiziano"¹. Anna Marangou's biography of Cesnola names him Andreas². She quotes a letter to Cesnola in which the writer calls him "your man Mr. Vondiziano" and says he proposed a joint dig of the second site at a price Vondiziano would settle with the peasants².

Cesnola himself had been Russian consul at Larnaca since about 1867, according to Olivier Masson; Vondiziano's own consulship is not dated⁸. In Salaminia (1884) Cesnola and Birch thank "Signor Vondiziani, a native of Larnaca, ex-Consul for Russia in Cyprus", for restoring a vessel found broken; this is probably the same man⁷.

Ohnefalsch-Richter later visited the two Apollo sanctuaries at Aghios Photios with "the late Andreas Vondiziano, the supervisor, I may say the conductor, of Cesnola's excavations", and again with Ferdinand Dümmler³. Masson reports that Ohnefalsch-Richter's text of 1891 already listed A. Vondiziano as deceased⁴. Masson distinguishes him from J. P. Vondiziano of Limassol, a different man of the same name⁴.