Modern Etruscans

New insights on the reception of Etruscan antiquity in the modernist period.

“L’Étrurie est à la mode”, French archaeologist Salomon Reinach bluntly stated in 1927. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, Etruria had not only been attracting the attention of archaeologists and specialists of all sorts, but it had also been a fascinating and, in some cases, captivating destination for poets, novelists, painters and sculptors from all over Europe. This volume deals with the impact of the constantly expanding knowledge on the Etruscans and their mysterious civilisation on Italian, French, English, and German literature, arts and culture, with particular regard to the modernist period (1890–1950). The volume brings a distinctive point of view to the subject by approaching it from an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective, and by looking at a quite diverse range of topics and artefacts, which includes, but is not limited to, the study of drawings, art works, travel essays, novels, cooking recipes, schoolbooks, photographs, and movies.

By exploring a new paradigm to understand ancient cultures, beyond the traditional ideas and models of “reception of the classics”, and by challenging the alleged fracture between the so-called “two cultures” of humanities and natural sciences, Modern Etruscans will be of interest to scholars from various disciplines. Designed as a learning tool for university courses on the interplay between literature and science in the twentieth century, it is suited as recommended reading for students in the humanities.

Contributors: Francesca Orestano (Università degli Studi di Milano), Chiara Zampieri (KU Leuven), Bart Van den Bossche (KU Leuven), Lisa C. Pieraccini (University of California, Berkeley), Martin Miller (Italienisches Kulturinstitut Stuttgart), Marie-Laurence Haack (Université de Picardie Jules Verne), Gennaro Ambrosino (University of Warwick), Martina Piperno (Durham University), Andrea Avalli (Scuola Superiore di Studi Storici di San Marino).

Ebook available in Open Access.
This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).

9 Introduction
Chiara Zampieri, Martina Piperno and Bart Van den Bossche

23 Etruscans, Victorians, and After: The Modern Sense of Beauty
Francesca Orestano

43 The ‘Walking Apollo’: From Archaeological Dissemination to Literary Knowledge
Chiara Zampieri

63 Cooking by the Book: Travel Writing and Etruscan Food Culture in the Interwar Period
Bart Van den Bossche

81 Etruscans in Unexpected Places: Space, Temporality and Visual Agency
Lisa C. Pieraccini

97 The Demonisation of the Etruscans: From Alfred Grünwedel to German Schoolbooks
Martin Miller

115 Mr Lawrence and Lady Larthia: D. H. Lawrence as an Apprentice Etruscologist
Marie-Laurence Haack

127 Etruscan Studies and the Infernal Landscape in Vincenzo Cardarelli’s prose d’arte
Gennaro Ambrosino

147 The Problem of Distance: Giorgio Bassani, The Etruscans and the Limits of Compassion
Martina Piperno

163 A Compromised Antiquity: The Post-war Italian Rejection of the Etruscan Past
Andrea Avalli

181 About the Authors

185 Index

Chiara Zampieri

Chiara Zampieri is a junior researcher in Comparative Literature at KU Leuven and member of the MDRN Research Lab.

Martina Piperno

Martina Piperno is assistant professor of Italian Studies at Sapienza - Università di Roma and member of the MDRN Research Lab.

Bart Van den Bossche

Bart Van den Bossche is full professor of Italian Studies at KU Leuven and founding member of the MDRN Research Lab.