Dr. Schiller: AP History of Art
Etruscan Art:
Italy Before the Romans
Who were the
Etruscans?
•people who occupied
the middle of Italy
(modern-day Tuscany)
•wiped out by the
Romans
•influenced by, but
different from, Greek art
During 8th and 7th centuries:
• Etruscans were sea-faring traders
•By 6th c., numerous Etruscan cities, but they never
united, so no real Etruscan “nation” or “kingdom”
•Only semblance of unity was primarily:
--Common linguistic ties
--Religious beliefs and practices
• the lack of unity left them easy prey for the Romans
Etruscan sculpture, painting, and architecture:
--provided the models for early Roman art and
architecture
--had an impact on the art of the Greek colonies in
Italy
Etruscan Art
Started to like luxury items incorporating
Eastern motifs
Same period as Greek Orientalizing
period
Followed by the Archaic Period
Early Etruscan art: Orientalizing Art
Great mineral wealth of Etruria transformed
Etruscan society during 7th c. BCE
Had iron, tin, copper, and silver
Cities with rich mines (like Cerveteri) could
import foreign goods
[Gardner plate 9-1]
Fibula with Orientalizing lions, from the Regolini-Galasi Tomb, Cerveteri, Italy,
ca. 650- 640 BCE.
Gold, approx. 1’ ½“ high.
• This is the most spectacular
luxury item
•fibula—a clasp or safety pin
used to fasten a women’s gown
at the shoulder
•This one is a unique shape and
giant size
•the 5 lions that walk across the
gold surface were borrowed from
the Orient (Asia)
•techniques also came from
Asia—
--repoussé
--granulation
from a 7th c. BCE tomb of wealthy family at Cerveteri
tomb had bronze cauldrons and gold jewelry of Etruscan
manufacture and Orientalizing style
Jewelry in the tomb also included:
a golden pectoral that covered the deceased woman’s chest, and
•2 gold circlets that might be earrings, though large enough to be
bracelets
Ostentatious display is frequently the hallmark of newly-acquired
wealth (certainly the case in 7th c. Etruria)
Archaic Art and Architecture
•even while emulating Greek architecture, always a distinctive
Etruscan temperament
•most Archaic Etruscan art departs markedly from its prototypes,
especially religious architecture
•Etruscan temples superficially owe much to Greece but there are
more differences than similarities
•Usually only the foundations survived, because of the building
materials they used
•But the foundations reveal the plans of the building; the
archeological record is supplemented by the Roman
architect Vitruvius’s account of Etruscan temple design in his
treatise on classical architecture written near the end of the 1st c.
BCE
Stokstad plate 6-3
Model of a typical. Etruscan temple of the 6th c. BCE, as described by Vitruvius.
Typical Archaic Etruscan temple
•resembles Greek gable-roofed temples
•but constructed not of stone but of wood and sun-dried
brick with terracotta decoration
•only one narrow staircase at the center of the temple
•temple sat on a high podium
•wide roof overhead
• columns were only in the front, creating a deep porch
that took up about ½ of the podium
•clear which is the front
•Greek temples’ front and rear were indistinguishable and
there were steps and peripteral colonnades on all sides
•Reason:
--Not meant to be seen as a sculptural mass from
outside and all directions
--Instead, meant to
function primarily as
an ornate home for
grand statues of
Etruscan gods
Other temple differences:
Columns resembled Doric but•were made of wood
•unfluted
•had bases
Because the superstructure was so light, Etruscan
columns were much more widely spaced than Greek
columns
• Etruscan temples had 3 cellas—one for each of
their chief gods:
--Tinia (Zeus/Jupiter)
--Uni (Hera/Juno)
--Menvra (Athena/Minerva)
• rare to find pedimental statuary
•but narrative statuary (terracotta instead of stone)
was placed on the peaks of Etruscan temple roofs
Stokstad plate 6-5
Sculptor: maybe Vulca of Veii, Apulu
(Apollo), from the roof of the
Portonaccio Temple, Veii, Italy, ca.
510-500 BCE.
Painted terracotta, approx. 5’ 11” high
Life-size image of Apulu (Apollo)
•One of the finest surviving rooftop statues
•brilliant example of the energy and excitement that
characterizes Archaic Etruscan art in general
•statue came from a temple at Veii
•just one of a group of at least four painted terracotta
figures that adorned the roof of the temple
•story—the god confronts Hercle (Herakles or
Hercules) for possession of a hind (female deer) wh
was a wondrous beast with golden horns that was
sacred to Apulu’s sister Artumes (Artemis/Diana)
Gardner plate 9-3
Sculptor: maybe Vulca of Veii, Apulu (Apollo), from
the roof of the Portonaccio Temple, Veii, Italy,
ca. 510-500 BCE.
Painted terracotta, approx. 5’ 11” high
The bright paint and
the rippling folds of
Apulu’s garment call
to mind the Greek
korai
[Gardner plate 5-12]
Kore, from the Acropolis, Athens,
Greece, ca.510 BCE marble, approx.
1’ 9 ½ “ high
but this Apulu is distinctively Etruscan:
•a vital figure with extraordinary force
•huge swelling contours
•plunging motion
•gesticulating arms
•fan-like calf muscles
•animated face
sculptor may have been Vulca of Veii, the most
famous Etruscan sculptor of the time
the statue’s discovery in 1916 was
instrumental in prompting a reevaluation of the
originality of Etruscan art!
Etruscan Artists in Rome
•Tarquinius Superbus (the Arrogant”) was Rome’s last king, driven
out in 509 BCE
•but before his expulsion, TS started a most ambitious
undertaking—erecting a magnificent temple on the Capitoline Hill
for joint worship of the 3 main Etruscan gods
•he summoned architects, sculptors, and workers from all over
Etruria
•so Rome’s 1st great religious shrine was Etruscan in patronage,
manufacture, and form
We know the following from several sources, including Pliny
the Elder:
•Vulca of Veii sculpted the statue of Jupiter in a 4-horse
chariot
•placed at the highest point of the roof, directly over the
façade’s center
•His red-faced (painted terracotta) Jupiter was so great
that Roman generals would paint their faces red in
emulation of his Jupiter when they paraded in triumph
through Rome after a battlefield victory
A story about Vulca’s chariot group underscored both its
tremendous size and the reverent awe later generations
held for it:
--Normally, terracotta statuary condenses and
contracts in the furnace as the clay’s moisture
evaporates in the heating process
--But Vulca’s statue swelled instead and could only
be removed form the furnace by dismantling the
furnace!
Sculptor: Novios
Plautios, “Ficoroni
Cista” from Palestrina,
Italy, late 4th c. BCE.
Bronze, approx. 2’6”
high
Vulca is the only Etruscan artist
named by any ancient writer, but we
have signatures of other Etruscan
artists on surviving artworks
E.g. Novios Plautios-worked in Rome,
a few centuries later, like this cista
(cylindrical container for a woman’s
toilet articles)
Stokstad plate 6-8
Sarcophagus with reclining couples,
from Cerveteri, Italy, ca. 520 BCE.
Painted terracotta, approx. 3’ 9 ½ “
high
•life-size terracotta statuary was known in Greece but especially
favored in Etruria
•This is a magnificent example of Archaic Etruscan terracotta
sculpture
•Sarcophagus in the form of a husband and wife reclining on a
banqueting couch, from a tomb in the Cerveteri necropolis
•It was cast in 4
sections, then joined
•No parallel in Greece—at this date, Greece had no monumental
tombs to house such sarcophagi, because the Greeks buried their
dead in simple graves marked by a stele or a statue
•Though banquets were commonly depicted on Greek vases, only
men dined at Greek meals
The image of a husband and wife sharing the same banqueting
couch is uniquely Etruscan
These figures are animated like the Apulu of Veii, even though they
are at rest
They are the antithesis of the
Statue of Menkaure and Khamerernebty
stiff and formal figured
Stokstad plate 3-12
encountered in Egyptian
tomb sculpture
Peplos Kore, from the
Acropolis, Athens,
Greece, ca. 530 BCE, Marble,
approx.
4’ high.
Stokstad plate 5-20.
Kroisos, from Anavysos,
Greece, ca. 530 BCE.
Marble, approx. 6’ 4” high.
Stokstaad plate 5-18
They are also in
striking contrast to
contemporary
Greek statues with
their emphasis on
proportion and
balance
•notice how the Cerveteri sculptor rendered the upper and lower
parts of each body:
--the legs are only summarily modeled
--the transition to the torso at the waist is unnatural
--this artist’s interest is focused on the upper half of the figures,
especially the vibrant faces and gesticulating arms
•The Greek statues have closed contours and calm demeanor
Gestures are still an
important ingredient of
Italian conversation
today
The “Audacity” of Etruscan Women
•at the end of the 1st c. BCE, Emperor Augustus had Livy write a
history of Rome from its legendary founding in 753 BCE to his own
day
•in the first book, Livy recounted the tale of Tullia, daughter of
Servius Tullius, an Etruscan king of Rome in the 6th c.:
--the princess had married the less ambitious of 2 brothers of the
royal Tarquinius family, while her sister had married the bolder one
--together, Tullia and her brother-in-law, Tarquinius Superbus,
arranged for the murder of their spouses
--then they married each other and plotted the overthrow and death
of Tullia’s father
Ostentatiously, Tullia drove her carriage over her father’s
corpse, spraying herself with his blood
that street is still called the “Street of Infamy’!
•Livy placed Tullia’s actions in the context of the
famous “audacity” of Etruscan women
•Independent spirit and relative freedom women
enjoyed in Etruscan society also horrified and
threatened other Greco-Roman male authors
•4th c. BCE Greek historian Theopompus heard
about the debauchery of Etruscan women; but much
of what he reported is untrue. They did not exercise
naked alongside Etruscan men
•Aristotle also remarked on Etruscan women
attending banquets and reclining with their husbands
•This custom (of Etruscan women attending banquets) shocked
and frightened the Greeks, because only men, boys, slave girls,
and prostitute attended Greek symposia (a convivial meeting,
usually following a dinner, for drinking and intellectual
conversation)
•In Greece, women remained at home, excluded from most of
public life, but in Etruria, women also regularly attended sporting
events with men
•Etruscan inscriptions also reflect the higher
status of women in Etruria than in Greece: they
often list both father and mother of the person
commemorated (unheard of in Greece—e.g.
“Hegeso, daughter of Proxenos”)
Etruscan women retained their own names and
could legally own property independent of their
husbands
The frequent inscriptions on Etruscan mirrors
and such buried with women seem to attest to a
high degree of female literacy as well.
Aerial view of Banditaccia
necropolis, Cerveteri, Italy.
7th-2nd c.
Stokstad plate 6-6
Houses for the
Dead: typical
Etruscan tomb took
the form of a mound
(tumulus)
somewhat similar to Mycenaean Treasury of Atreus
Mycenaean
Etruscan
•but instead of being constructed of masonry blocks and then
covered by an earthen mound, each Etruscan tumulus covered
one or more subterranean multi-chambered tombs cut of the
dark local limestone called tufa
•very large tumuli--diameters sometimes reached over 130 feet
•arranged in cemeteries in an orderly manner along a network
of streets
•produced the effect of cities of the dead
•always located some distance from the cities of the living
•the underground
tomb chambers cut
into the rock
resembled the
houses of the living
•e.g. the central
entrance and
smaller chambers
open into a large
central space
these mirror the
axial sequence of
rooms in actual
Etruscan houses of the time (similar to that of early Roman
houses)
Plan of the Tomb of the Shields and Chairs, Cerveteri, Italy, 2nd half of 6th c. BCE.
[Gardner plate 9-6]
Plan of a Roman
House.
Gardner p.255
Plan of an Etruscan tomb
Tomb of Shields and Chairs, interior of the central room
this “house look” was enhanced by cutting out of the rock a series of
beds and grand armchairs with curved backs and footstools, ceiling
beams, framed doorways, even windows
Interior of the Tomb of the Reliefs, Cerveteri, Italy, 3rd c. BCE.
Stokstad plate 6-7
this “house look” was enhanced by cutting out of the rock a
series of beds and grand armchairs with curved backs and
footstools, ceiling beams, framed doorways, even windows
Interior of the Tomb of the Reliefs,
Cerveteri, Italy, 3rd c. BCE.
Stokstad plate 3-19
Interior hall of the rock-cut tomb of
Amenemhet,
Beni Hasan, Egypt, Dynasty XII, ca. 19501900 BCE
The Etruscan tomb houses are reminiscent of much earlier
Egyptian rock-cut tombs
notice other different values of Etruscans—
--Etruscans built houses to live in of wood and mud brick
which didn’t last but Greeks built houses out of stone
--Etruscans built stone huge monumental burial chambers,
not Greeks
Tomb of Shields and chairs
Tomb of the Reliefs
•Tomb of the Reliefs is the most elaborately decorated tomb
• like previous Tomb of Shields and Chairs, it accommodated
several generations of single family
•brightly painted stucco reliefs covered the stone
•pictures of knives, mirrors, drinking cups, pitchers all suggest a
domestic context
Banqueters and Musicians, detail of mural paintings in the Tomb of the Leopards,
Tarquinia, Italy, ca. 480-470 BCE.
[Gardner plate 9-8]
This comes from a tomb in Tarquinia
Tarquinia
Rome
Cerverteri
•Tarquinian tombs different from Cerveteri:
--tumuli don't cover the Tarquinian tombs
--the interiors do not have carvings imitating the appearance of
Etruscan houses
•but some paintings decorate the tomb chamber walls
Tarquinia
Rome
Cerverteri
•painted tombs seem to have been only for the wealthiest
Etruscan families
•We know a lot about tombs here because archeologists began to
use periscopes to explore tomb contents from the surface before
excavation.
•Tomb of the Leopards is characteristic tomb here
•Named for the beasts that guard the painted chamber’s interior
form their perch within the real wall pediment
Guardian Leopards
West pediment from the Temple of Artemis, Corfu, Greece, ca. 600-580 BCE.
Limestone, greatest height approx. 9’ 4” .
Stokstad plate 5-12
Reminiscent of the panthers on each side of Medusa in the
pediment of the Archaic Greek temple of Artemis at Corfu
however, mythological figures are uncommon in Tarquinian murals
Banqueters
instead, this tomb has banqueting couples (notice men with dark
skin, women with light) adorn the walls.
served by pitcher and cupbearers
Musicians
•musicians entertain them playing double pipes and the 7-stringed
lyre
•banquet is in open air or perhaps in tent
•notice the exaggerated gestures with unnaturally large hands—
typically Etruscan
•There is a man on a couch in the far right on the rear wall who
holds up an egg—the symbol of regeneration
•Tone is joyful, a celebration of life, food, wine, music, and dance,
rather than a somber contemplation of death.
Diving and fishing, detail of mural paintings in the Tomb of Hunting and Fishing,
Tarquinia, Italy, ca. 530-52 BCE.
Gardner plate 9-9
Etruscan landscapes
•stylistically, Etruscan landscapes are comparable to 6th c.
Greek vases before the Later Archaic painters got into
foreshortening
•but more interested in rendering nature than Greeks
•e.g. in Tomb of hunting and Fishing at Tarquinia
Here we sees scenes of Etruscan enjoying the pleasures of nature
in this detail, a youth dives off a rocky promontory while others fish
from a boat
Another wall has youthful hunters aiming slingshots at birds
hunter with
slingshot
These recall painted reliefs in the Old Kingdom Egyptian
Tomb of Ti….
Ti watching a hippopotamus
hunt, relief in the mastaba of Ti,
Saqqara, Egypt, Dynasty V [Old
Kingdom], ca. 2450-2350 BCE.
Painted limestone, hunting
scene approx. 4’ high.
Stokstad plate 3-15
….and also mural paintings
from the New Kingdom
Tomb of Nebamun.
The Etruscan painted reliefs
may indicate knowledge of
this Egyptian funerary
tradition….
Fowling scene from the tomb of Nebamun, Thebes,
18th Dynasty [New Kingdom], ca. 1400-1350, fresco
on dry plaster, about 2’8” high
[Gardner plate 3-30]
Landscape with
swallows (Spring
Fresco), from
Room Delta 2, Akrotiri,
Thera (Cyclades),
Greece,
ca. 1650 BCE, approx.
7’ 6” high
Stokstad plate 4-14
…although the multicolored rocks look like the Aegean Spring
Fresco, we don’t know of anything similar in contemporary Greek
art.
Later Etruscan Art
although 5th c. as golden age in Greece, it wasn’t in Etruria!
In 509 BCE, Romans expelled the last of the Etruscan kings,
Tarquinius Superbus, and became a republic
in 474 BCE, the Etruscan fleet was defeated and ended Etruscan
dominance of the sea and also ended its prosperity!
these events had important art and architecture consequences:
•number of Etruscan tombs decreased sharply and so did the
quality
•no more golden jewelry and imported Greek vases in the tumuli
but Etruscan art didn’t cease—they continued especially in
casting of bronze and terracotta statures (though fewer in
number)
Capitoline Wolf, from Rome, Italy, ca. 500-480 BCE, bronze.
approx. 2’ 7 ½ ” high
Stokstad plate 6-1
Capitoline Wolf:
•Best known of the later Etruscan statues
•One of the most memorable portrayals of an animal in the history
of world art
•somewhat larger than life
•hollow-cast
Portrayal of she-wolf in the legend:
•she nursed Romulus and Remus after they were abandoned as
infants
•as adults, they quarreled and Romulus killed Remus
•he founded Rome on April 21, 753 BCE on the Palatine Hill
•became the city’s first king
•but the statue seems to have been made for the new Roman
Republic after they kicked out Tarquinius Superbus
•became the new state’s totem—appropriately defiant image
•remains the emblem of Rome to this day
But it’s an Etruscan work, not Roman!
The kids were added in the Renaissance and probably the work of
Antonio Pollaiuilo
Chimera of Arezzo, from Arezzo, Italy, 1st ½ of 500s BCE, bronze.
approx. 2’ 7 ½ ” high
[Gardner plate 9-11]
another masterpiece of Etruscan animal sculpture
found in 1553 and greatly admired during the Renaissance
Created about 100 years after the Capitoline Wolf
Chimera is a monster of Greek invention with
* a lion’s head and body
* a serpent’s tail
* a goat head from out of the lion’s side
•this one is from a myth—Greek hero Bellerophon hunted and slew
the beast and here it is injured and bleeding but not defeated yet
•It is tense:
* muscles are stretched tightly over its rib cage
* prepares to attack
•ferocious cry emanates from its open jaws
•menacing gaze upward toward an unseen adversary
some scholars think it might have been part of a group that
originally included Bellerophon
it seems in the tradition of the guardian nurse of Romulus and
Remus
Rome Overwhelms Etruria
•over the 300s and 200s BCE, Rome conquered the various parts
of Etruria
•Etruscan artists produced cistae—
* cylindrical containers for a woman’ toilet articles
* made of sheet bronze with cast handles and feet and
elaborately engraved bodies
•in large numbers from the 4th c. BCE onward
•they were popular gifts for both the living and
dead (along with engraved bronze mirrors)
•the Etruscan bronze cista industry centered in
Palestrina
Novios Plautios, Ficoroni Cista, from Palestrina, Italy, late 4th c.
BCE, bronze. approx. 2’ 6” high
[Gardner plate 9-12]
The Ficoroni Cista:
•inscription on the handle states that India Laconia, a local
noblewoman, deposited the bronze container in her daughter’s
tomb and that the artist was Novios Plautios
•according to the inscription, his workshop was in Rome-by this
date becoming an important Italian cultural and political center\
•the engraved frieze shows an episode from the Argonauts in
search of he Golden Fleece
•the composition is an adaptation of a lost Greek
panel painting
•this is another testimony to the burgeoning
wealth and prestige of the formerly-Etruscan city
•Greek source for the engraving is evident in:
* the figures seen entirely from behind or in
¾ view
* the placement of the protagonists on
several levels
* in the Polygnotan manner
What is the “Polygnotan manner”?
Classical Greek Painter, Polygnotos of Thasos
Leading painter of the 1st half of the 5th c. BCE (“late Classical
period”)
His work adorned important buildings both in Athens and Delphi
E.g. the pinakotheke of Mnesikles’ Propylaia
He was a red-figured vase painter
Classical Greek Painter, Polygnotos of Thasos
He introduced a revolutionary compositional style, rejecting the
scheme used on all Greek vases examined thus far
His style:
* Before him, figures were situated on a common ground line at the
bottom of the picture plane, either in horizontal bands or single
panels
* But Polygnotos placed his figures on different levels, staggered in
tiers in the manner of Ashurbanipal’s lion hunt relief of 2 centuries
before
Ashurbanipal hunting lions, relief from the North Palace of
Ashurbanipal, Nineveh, Iraq, ca. 645-640 BCE. Gypsum, approx. 5’
high
[Gardner plate 2-24]
The abandonment of a single ground line by Polygnotos and his
followers was as momentous a break form the past as was the
rejection of frontality in statuary by Early Classical Greek sculptors
City of Perugia formed an alliance with Rome and so wasn’t
destroyed:
Porta Marzia, Perugia, Italy, 2nd c. BCE
[Gardner plate 9-13]
in fact, portions of Perugia’s ancient walls and gates are still
standing
this includes the Porta Marzia (Gate of Mars)
this was the upper part of the gate, imbedded in a later war
the arcuated (curved) opening is formed by a series of trapezoidal
stones voussoirs held in place by pressing against each other
such arches were built earlier in Greece as well as Mesopotamia
(see gate of Ishtar)
Ishtar Gate (restored), Babylon, Iraq, ca. 575 BCE. Glazed brick.
Stokstad plate 2-27
•but Italy, first under the Etruscans and later under the Romans, is
where arcuated gateways and freestanding (triumphal) arches
became a major architectural type
•the Porta Marzia typified Etruscan adaptation of Greek motifs by
using Hellenic-inspired pilasters (columns projecting from walls) to
frame the arches
•This use of pilasters has a long and distinguished history in
Roman and later times
•in the Porta Marzia sculptured half-figures of Jupiter and his sons
Castor and Pollux and their horses look out from between the
fluted pilasters
•Why Castor and Pollux? The divine twins had appeared
miraculously on a battlefield in 484 BCE to run the tide in favor of
the Romans
•the presence of these 3 deities here may reflect the new Roman
practice of erecting triumphal arches crowned by gilded bronze
statues
Aule Metele (Arringatore, Orator)
from Sanguineto, Italy, early 1st
c. BCE. Bronze,
approx. 5/7” high
Stokstad plate 6-12
•in contrast to Lars, the portrait of Aule Metele
is a supremely self-confident image
•portrayed as a magistrate raising his arm to
address an assembly (that’s why the modern
nickname)
•life-size bronze statue was discovered in
1566 so it’s another Etruscan masterpiece
known to Italian Renaissance sculptors
•this shows that the Etruscan artists continued
to be experts at bronze-casting long after the
heyday of Etruria
•probably produced at about the time that
Roman predominance (hegemony) over
Etruscans became total
•so-called Social War of the early 1st c. BCE
ended in 89 BCE with the conferring of Roman
citizenship on all Italy’s inhabitants
•in fact, Aule wears the short toga and high
laced boots of a Roman magistrate
•head with close-cropped hair and signs of age
in fact, resembles portraits produced in Rome
at the time
•this orator is Etruscan in name only
•Etruscan art became Roman Art
Key Terms:
Etruscan Art
arcuated: of arch-column construction
chimera: A monster of Greek invention with the head and body of a lion and the tail of a
serpent. A second head, that of a goat, grows out of one side of the body.
cista (plural: cistae: an Etruscan cylindrical container made of sheet bronze with case
handles and feet, often with elaborately engraved bodies, used for women’s toilet
articles.
Etruscan: a native or inhabitant of ancient Etruria; the Etruscans influenced the Romans
(who had suppressed them by about 200 BCE)
fibula: A decorative pin, usually used to fasten garments.
granulation: a decorative technique in which tiny metal balls, granules, are fused to a
metal surface
necropolis: a large burial area or cemetery; literally, a city of the dead
pectoral: an ornament worn on the chest
podium: the masonry supporting a classical temple or other building
stucco: fine plaster or cement used as a coating for walls or for decoration
tufa: a porous rock formed from deposits of springs
tumulus (plural: tumuli): Burial mound; in Etruscan architecture, tumuli cover one or more
subterranean multichambered tombs cut out of the local tufa.
Tuscan (Etruscan) column: also known as Etruscan column. Resembles ancient Greek
Doric column, but made of wood, unfluted, and with a base. Tuscan columns were
spaced more widely than were Greek columns.
voussoirs: wedge-shaped blocks used in the construction of a true arch. The central
voussoir, which set the arch, is the keystone
Vulca: Vulca was an Etruscan artist from the town of Veii. The only Etruscan artist
mentioned by ancient writers, he worked for the last of the Roman kings, Tarquinius
Superbus. He is responsible for creating a terracotta statue of Jupiter that was inside
the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill, and possibly the Apollo
of Veii. His statue of Jupiter, which being made of terracotta had a red face, was so
famous that victorious Roman generals would paint their faces red during their
triumphal marches through Rome. Pliny the Elder wrote that his works ere "the finest
images of deities of that era...more admired than gold.
VOCABULARY
ILLUSTRATIONS
Keystone and voussoirs
pectoral
The thing
around his
neck
fibula
What is this hill called?
tumulus
Arcuated opening (in a triumphal arch)
tufa
chimera
Tumuli in a necropolis
cista
granulated
Of or
pertaining to
this culture
Etruscan
•
Key terms:
arcuated opening: To create architectural forms that could cover larger spaces without too many supports the
arcuated system of building could be used. The basic unit of the arcuated system was the arch, which was
semi-circular in shape. In this case, the supports did not carry monolithic lintels, but smaller units, wedgeshaped voussoirs, which were constructed over arch-shaped wooden shuttering. Once they were all in place,
with the final key stone at the top of the arch, their shape meant that their own weight wedged them more
and more tightly together in a dynamic structure, and the shuttering could safely be removed and used to
build the next one.
2. chimera: A monster of Greek invention with the head and body of a lion and the tail of a serpent. A second
head, that of a goat, grows out of one side of the body.
3. cistae: plural of cista. An Etruscan cylindrical container made of sheet bronze with case handles and feet,
often with elaborately engraved bodies, used for women’s grooming items.
4. Etruscan: pertaining to Etruria, its inhabitants, civilization, art, or language.
5. fibula: a decorative pin, usually used to fasten garments.
6. granulation: A decorative technique in which tiny metal balls, granules, are fused to a metal surface.
7. necropolis: A large burial area or cemetery, literally, A city of the dead
8. pectoral: An ornament worn on the chest
9. podium: a continuous projecting base or pedestal under a building.
10. stucco:fine plaster used for coating wall surfaces or molding into architectural
1.
decorations.
11. tufa: A porous rock formed from deposits of springs
12. tumulus: Burial mound; in Etruscan architecture, tumuli cover one or ore subterranean multi-chambered
tombs cut out of the local tufa. Also characteristic of the Japanese Kofun period of the third and fourth
centuries where they signal the rise of grand political leaders.
13. Tuscan: relating to or denoting a classical order of architecture resembling the Doric but
lacking all ornamentation.
14. voussoirs: A wedge-shaped block used in the construction of a true arch. The central voissoir, which sets the
arch, is the keystone.
15. Vulca: the only Etruscan artist mentioned by ancient writers