See These Ancient Etruscan Frescoes That Italy Bought for Millions and Put on Public Display in Rome
Found in a burial chamber, the artworks depict battles between ancient heroes in the Mediterranean world
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Some of the best-preserved paintings from Italy’s ancient Etruscan civilization have been put on public display in Rome. The exhibition opened this week at the National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia, just weeks after the Italian government announced that it purchased the artworks from private hands for $17 million.
“This is our cultural heritage,” Luana Toniolo, head of the Villa Giulia museum, tells Reuters’ Crispian Balmer. “This is very important for our roots, for our country ... and it has to belong to the state.”
Fun fact: Etruscan alphabet
The Etruscans adapted the Greek alphabet and introduced words that we still use, including “military” and “person,” according to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.Dating to between 340 and 320 B.C.E., the frescoes are important surviving artworks made by the Etruscans, an ancient people from the Italian peninsula. The civilization thrived between the ninth and second centuries B.C.E., joining the Greeks and Phoenicians as a major power in the Mediterranean region. Their influence began to fade by the first century B.C.E., however, when they were conquered and absorbed by the rapidly growing Roman Empire.
The frescoes themselves depict the violent struggle for power that gripped Etruscan life on the peninsula. Scenes portray Etruscan soldiers killing adversaries from Rome. One fresco shows Achilles killing Trojans. Another scene shows Mastarna—another name for Servius Tullius, the sixth king of Rome—liberating an Etruscan nobleman.
“It is a vast book of stone and color that tells us about families, warriors, gods and heroes—both Etruscans and Greeks—and recounts Greek myths reinterpreted through an Etruscan lens,” Toniolo tells the Associated Press’ Nicole Winfield.
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The Italian government has been trying for more than a century to acquire these frescoes from the Torlonia family, “one of Italy’s ancient noble families whose vast collection of antiquity has long been kept out of the public domain,” the AP reports.
French archaeologist Alessandro Francois discovered the artworks in 1857 in a burial chamber in the ancient city of Vulci on land owned by the Torlonia family. The frescoes illustrated the central hall of what became known as the Francois Tomb, which also contained jewels, vases, bronzes and other ancient artifacts.
The Torlonia family kept the frescoes and gave away or sold other treasures from the tomb. Many of these items today are held in institutions across Europe, including the Louvre and British Museum, reports Reuters. Museums loaned their relevant artifacts to the Villa Giulia museum for the exhibition of the frescoes.
As part of an effort to acquire cultural masterpieces, the Italian government recently also purchased Antonello da Messina’s Ecce Homo painting for $14.9 million and Caravaggio’s portrait of Maffeo Barberini, who became Pope Urban VIII, for $35 million.
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