Full Description
A landmark introduction to Etruscan art and society filled with groundbreaking insights and never-before-published artworks
The Etruscans: From the Heart of Ancient Italy introduces a culture that flourished in ancient Etruria in Italy from the ninth to second centuries BCE. Renowned for their beauty and craftsmanship, the nearly two hundred artworks in this book offer fascinating insight into Etruscan society through wall paintings, bronze and terracotta vessels and sculptures, and opulent gold jewelry, as well as other treasures. This comprehensive exhibition catalogue reveals how Etruscan achievements influenced Western civilization, leaving a legacy that still captivates today.
Featured in this book will be the Linen Book of Zagreb, a third-century BCE calendar of rituals and sacrifices that has never been shown in the United States; a sarcophagus depicting a reclining man with a folded linen book; a variety of bronze sculptures, mirrors, and arms and armor, revealing the Etruscan skill in working with this metal; lavish gold jewelry, including a bowl covered with more than 250,000 granules; terracotta and bronze models of houses discovered in tombs, as well as the Talamone Temple Pediment; a chariot from the Regolini-Galassi tomb on loan from the Vatican's Museo Gregoriano Etrusco; a decorated and painted ostrich egg from Vulci Polledrara necropolis; and, finally, five recently excavated bronze statues pulled from the sacred waters of San Casciano dei Bagni that have never been shown publicly.
As the first major work in more than twenty years to feature and describe new findings and other developments in the field of Etruscan art and archaeology, this book provides groundbreaking insights by leading scholars into this area of ancient art. With illustrations and descriptions of many works that have not been published previously, this volume is certain to be the cornerstone publication on the topic.
Distributed for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Exhibition Schedule:
Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
(May 2-September 20, 2026)
