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

Format: Edited volume - paperback

Size: 234 × 156 × 11 mm

188 pages

ISBN: 9789462703797

Publication: October 24, 2023

Languages: English

Stock item number: 157110

This book forms a very useful starting point in the field of cultural history in modern times. The scholarly content of several contributions is deeply interesting and brings fresh ideas to the discipline, inspiring new approaches. Each contribution challenges the current debate and presents new content, if to varying degrees.
Giovanna Bagnasco Gianni, Università degli Studi di Milano