  These delays conspired with what many observers at the time considered the uninspiring nature of the works preserved in the papyri to dampen wider interest in and notice of them, despite their unique status. This state-of-affairs persisted until the unification of Italy (1861), when a new series of publications of facsimiles of the papyrus texts, engravings of drawings (Italian: disegni) made soon after the rolls were opened, appeared in quick succession (see the Bibliographical Note, infra). Now the texts of Philodemus finally became objects of sustained study by scholars interested in Epicureanism.