Etruria was a region of Central Italy, located in an area that covered part of what are now most of Tuscany, northern Lazio, and northern and western Umbria.
An antefix is a vertical block which terminates and conceals the covering tiles of a tiled roof. It also serves to protect the join from the elements. In grand buildings, the face of each stone antefix was richly carved, often with the anthemion ornament. In less grand buildings moulded ceramic antefixes, usually terracotta, might be decorated with figures heads, either of humans, mythological creatures, or astrological iconography, especially in the Roman period. On temple roofs, maenads and satyrs were often alternated. The frightening features of the Gorgon, with its petrifying eyes and sharp teeth was also a popular motif to ward off evil. A Roman example from the Augustan period features the butting heads of two billy goats. It may have had special significance in imperial Rome since the constellation Capricorn was adopted by the emperor Augustus as his own lucky star sign and appeared on coins and legionary standards. By this time they were found on many large buildings, including private houses. The earliest examples in museum collections date back to the 7th century BCE in both Greece and Etruria.
Vulci or Volci was a rich Etruscan city in what is now northern Lazio, central Italy.
The sanctuary of Minerva at Portonaccio is an archaeological site on the western side of the plateau on which the ancient Etruscan city of Veii, north of Rome, Italy, was located. The site takes its name from the locality within the village of Isola Farnese, part of Municipio XX, city of Rome.
The National Etruscan Museum is a museum of the Etruscan civilization, housed in the Villa Giulia in Rome, Italy.
Bucchero is a class of ceramics produced in central Italy by the region's pre-Roman Etruscan population. This Italian word is derived from the Latin poculum, a drinking-vessel, perhaps through the Spanish búcaro, or the Portuguese púcaro.
The Staatliche Antikensammlungen is a museum in Munich's Kunstareal holding Bavaria's collections of antiquities from Greece, Etruria and Rome, though the sculpture collection is located in the opposite Glyptothek and works created in Bavaria are on display in a separate museum. Ancient Egypt also has its own museum.
Etruscan cities were a group of ancient settlements that shared a common Etruscan language and culture, even though they were independent city-states. They flourished over a large part of the northern half of Italy starting from the Iron Age, and in some cases reached a substantial level of wealth and power. They were eventually assimilated first by Italics in the south, then by Celts in the north and finally in Etruria itself by the growing Roman Republic.
Etruscan art was produced by the Etruscan civilization in central Italy between the 10th and 1st centuries BC. From around 750 BC it was heavily influenced by Greek art, which was imported by the Etruscans, but always retained distinct characteristics. Particularly strong in this tradition were figurative sculpture in terracotta, wall-painting and metalworking especially in bronze. Jewellery and engraved gems of high quality were produced.
Like the Egyptians, Phoenicians and Carthaginians, the Etruscans were rather slow to adopt the invention of coinage. The brief period of Etruscan coinage, with the predominance of marks of value, seems to be an amalgam that reconciles two very different monetary systems: the 'primitive' bronze-weighing and aes grave economy of central Italy with that of struck silver and gold issues of southern Italian Greek type not familiar in Etruria.
Caelius Vibenna, (Etruscan Caile Vipina, was a noble Etruscan who lived c. 750 BCE and brother of Aulus Vibenna.
The François Tomb is an important painted Etruscan tomb from the Ponte Rotto Necropolis in the Etruscan city of Vulci, Lazio, in central Italy. It was discovered in 1857 by Alessandro François and Adolphe Noël des Vergers. It dates to the last quarter of the fourth century BC. The tomb seems to belong to the Etruscan family of the Saties and one of its chief occupants is Vel Saties, who appears with his dwarf, Arnza.
The Three Revelers Vase, also known as simply the Revelers Vase, is a Greek vase originating from the Archaic Period. Painted around 510 BCE in the red figure pottery style, the Revelers vase was found in an Etruscan tomb in Vulci, Italy. The painting is attributed to Euthymides. Although the vase is in the amphora shape, its purpose is more decorative than functional. The painting itself shows three nude partygoers and Hector arming on the reverse. The work is remarkable because of the early use of foreshortening as opposed to conventional profile and frontal views. The Revelers Vase currently resides in the Staatliche Antikensammlungen in Münich, Germany.
Etruscan vase painting was produced from the 7th through the 4th centuries BC, and is a major element in Etruscan art. It was strongly influenced by Greek vase painting, and followed the main trends in style over the period. Besides being producers in their own right, the Etruscans were the main export market for Greek pottery outside Greece, and some Greek painters probably moved to Etruria, where richly decorated vases were a standard element of grave inventories.
The Isis Tomb is the name of a richly endowed Etruscan tomb that was found at the Polledrara Cemetery, Vulci, Lazio, Italy, in the early nineteenth century. Many artefacts were discovered in the Isis Tomb when it was originally excavated but, as was custom at the time, only objects of high monetary value were kept. Over 60 of these objects are now held by the British Museum, with others scattered across a range of museums around the world.
The Centaur of Vulci is a statue of the Etruscan Orientalising period, discovered in Vulci near Etruscan Viterbo, now in the collection of the National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia in Rome.
Visentium was the Latin name of one of the minor Etruscan cities. It was a boundary settlement on the southwestern shore of the Lago di Bolsena and was settled from the Final Bronze Age until the Archaic period.
Set of jewelry, also known as the Vulci group is a set of 5th century BCE Etruscan metalwork collection by an unknown jeweler. It is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Winged Lion of Vulci is a nenfro sculpture of a lion with wings, carved between 550 BC and 540 BC and discovered in excavations of the necropoli of the Etruscan city of Vulci. It is now in the Louvre.
Alessandro François (1796–1857) was an Italian archaeologist. He was also a scholar, artist, engineer, and war commissioner of the Grand Duke of Tuscany in the mid-19th century.
