The National Etruscan Museum () is a

museum A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...

dedicated to the

Etruscan __NOTOC__ Etruscan may refer to: Ancient civilization *Etruscan civilization (1st millennium BC) and related things: **Etruscan language ** Etruscan architecture **Etruscan art **Etruscan cities **Etruscan coins **Etruscan history **Etruscan myt ...

and Faliscan civilizations, housed in the

Villa Giulia The Villa Giulia is a villa in Rome, Italy. It is named after Pope Julius III, who had it built in 1551–1553 on what was then the edge of the city. Today it is publicly owned, and houses the Museo Nazionale Etrusco, a collection of Etruscan ...

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. It is the most important Etruscan museum in the world.

History

The villa was built for

Pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...

Julius III Pope Julius III (; ; 10 September 1487 – 23 March 1555), born Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 22 February 1550 to his death, in March 1555. After a career as a disting ...

, for whom it was named. It remained in papal property until 1870, when, in the wake of the

Risorgimento The unification of Italy ( ), also known as the Risorgimento (; ), was the 19th century political and social movement that in 1861 ended in the annexation of various states of the Italian peninsula and its outlying isles to the Kingdom of ...

and the demise of the

Papal States The Papal States ( ; ; ), officially the State of the Church, were a conglomeration of territories on the Italian peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope from 756 to 1870. They were among the major states of Italy from the 8th c ...

, it became the property of the

Kingdom of Italy The Kingdom of Italy (, ) was a unitary state that existed from 17 March 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed King of Italy, until 10 June 1946, when the monarchy wa ...

. The museum was founded in 1889 as part of the same nationalistic movement, with the aim of collecting together all the pre-

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

antiquities Antiquities are objects from antiquity, especially the civilizations of the Mediterranean such as the Classical antiquity of Greece and Rome, Ancient Egypt, and the other Ancient Near Eastern cultures such as Ancient Persia (Iran). Artifact ...

Latium Latium ( , ; ) is the region of central western Italy in which the city of Rome was founded and grew to be the capital city of the Roman Empire. Definition Latium was originally a small triangle of fertile, volcanic soil (Old Latium) on whic ...

, southern

Etruria Etruria ( ) was a region of Central Italy delimited by the rivers Arno and Tiber, an area that covered what is now most of Tuscany, northern Lazio, and north-western Umbria. It was inhabited by the Etruscans, an ancient civilization that f ...

and

Umbria Umbria ( ; ) is a Regions of Italy, region of central Italy. It includes Lake Trasimeno and Cascata delle Marmore, Marmore Falls, and is crossed by the Tiber. It is the only landlocked region on the Italian Peninsula, Apennine Peninsula. The re ...

belonging to the Etruscan and Faliscan civilizations, and has been housed in the villa since the beginning of the 20th century.

Collections

The museum's most famous single treasure is the

terracotta Terracotta, also known as terra cotta or terra-cotta (; ; ), is a clay-based non-vitreous ceramic OED, "Terracotta""Terracotta" MFA Boston, "Cameo" database fired at relatively low temperatures. It is therefore a term used for earthenware obj ...

funerary monument, the almost life-size ''Bride and Groom'' (the so-called '' Sarcofago degli Sposi'', or ''Sarcophagus of the Spouses''), reclining as if they were at a dinner party. Other objects held are: * The Etruscan-Phoenician

Pyrgi Tablets The Pyrgi Tablets (dated ) are three golden plates inscribed with a bilingual Phoenician– Etruscan dedicatory text. They are the oldest historical source documents from Italy, predating Roman hegemony, and are rare examples of texts in these la ...

* The

Apollo of Veii The Apollo of Veii is a life-size painted terracotta Etruscan civilization, Etruscan statue of ''Aplu (deity), Aplu'' (Apollo), designed to be placed at the highest part of a temple. The statue was discovered in the Portonaccio (Veio), Portonacci ...

* The

Cista A cista is a box or basket used by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Etruscans and Romans for various practical and mystical purposes. Purpose and usage The ''cista'' or ''cistella'' was at first thought be a wicker basket used for holding fruit ...

Ficoroni * A reconstructed frieze displaying

Tydeus Tydeus (; Ancient Greek: Τυδεύς ''Tūdeus'') was an Aetolian hero in Greek mythology, belonging to the generation before the Trojan War. He was one of the Seven against Thebes, and the father of Diomedes, who is frequently known by the patr ...

eating the brain of his enemy

Melanippus :''The name Melanippus is the masculine counterpart of Melanippe.'' In Greek mythology, there were several people named Melanippus (): *Melanippus, one of the sons of Agrius and possibly Dia, daughter of King Porthaon of Calydon. Along with his ...

* The

Tita Vendia vase The Tita Vendia vase is a ceramic impasto pithosBaccum, p. 583. (wine containerBaldi, p. 126.), made around 620-600 BC, most likely in Rome). The ''pithos'', which exists only as an incomplete set of sherds, carries one of two earliest known inscri ...

* The Sarpedon Krater (or, the "

Euphronios Krater The Euphronios Krater (or Sarpedon Krater) is an ancient Greek terra cotta calyx-krater, a bowl used for mixing wine with water. Created around the year 515 BC, it is the only complete example of the surviving 27 vases painted by the renowned E ...

") - this is now at the Archaeological Museum of Cerveteri, it was at the Villa Giulia from 2008 to 2014 * The

Centaur of Vulci 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. History The statue was discovered in a private tomb ...

Phoenician metal bowls Phoenician metal bowls are approximately 90 decorated bowls made in the 7th–8th centuries BCE in bronze, silver and gold (often in the form of electrum), found since the mid-19th century in the Eastern Mediterranean and Iraq. They were historica ...

References

External links

Museo Nazionale Etrusco information
* 1889 establishments in Italy Archaeological museums in Lazio Art museums and galleries in Rome Museums established in 1889 National museums of Italy Rome Q. III Pinciano {{italy-museum-stub

History

Collections

See also

References

External links