THE ETRUSCANS TOP THE BILLS

 

 

Three separate exhibitions are dedicated this spring to the fascinating and mysterious Etruscan people who inhabited a large part of the Italian peninsula from the Iron Age till they were conquered and absorbed by the Romans. They left extensive evidence of their civilization, their rituals, their art, their engineering feats and their burial customs in the hundreds of tombs distributed in world famous necropoli such as those at Cerveteri, near Rome, and Tarquinia in northern Lazio.  

Running at Rome's Palazzo delle Esposizioni until the 20th July 2014 is:

Gli Etruschi e il Mediterraneo, with antiquities from Cerveteri, documents ten centuries of history when Kaisraie (as the Etruscans called it) became one of the most important ports of the Mediterranean. The exhibition contains significant works from the collections of some of the world's top museums, such as the British Museum (London), the Louvre (Paris), the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (Copenhagen), the Antikensammlung (Berlin), the Vatican Museum as well as the National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia in Rome and the National Museum of Cerveteri.  Some of the material, coming from the recent excavations, is on display for the very first time.

Seduzione Etrusca, from the Secrets of Holkham Hall to the Marvels of the British Museum is a major exhibition in Palazzo Casale, Cortona (Tuscany), involving the British Museum and Holkham Hall, Norfolk, the residence of Thomas Coke, created 1st Earl of Leicester in 1744. Coke spent six years in Italy on his Grand Tour, where he collected many antiquities. He was particularly fascinated by a forgotten manuscript, De Etruria Regali, written between 1616 and 1619 by Thomas Dempster, a Scots university professor serving at the Medici court. Lord Coke arranged for this manuscript to be republished in 1726, complete with illustrations of the principal Etruscan antiquities in Italy. It could be said that the science of Etruscanology was born largely thanks to this volume. A year later, in fact, the prestigious Accademia Etrusca di Cortona was founded. Members included the leading intellectuals of the time, such as Montesquieu and Voltaire. The exhibition, which runs until the 31st July 2014, displays the original manuscript as well as over 40 Etruscan works of art from the British Museum, along with a rich selection of items from the central Etruria area.

Principi Immortali. I Fasti dell'aristocrazia Etrusca a Vulci (Immortal princes. The Pomp of the Etruscan Aristocracy of Vulci) opens on the 29th April 2014 at the National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia, Rome. On display for the first time recent finds from an excavation campaign in northern Lazio where the tomb of an Etruscan princess came to light, complete with the remains of a funeral chariot, two silver hands with the nails covered in gold leaf and numerous fibule (brooches), amber and objects in bone and a bronze horse's bit.

 

Info: Gli Etruschi e Il Mediterraneo www.palazzoesposizioni.it

Seduzione Etrusca.  www.cortonamaec.org

Posted on 10 May 2014 by Editor
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