Italy

The Etruscans in the Modern Imagination

Review by Lucy Shipley This book is very clearly a passion project, the result of a lifetime’s love for and engagement with the Etruscan past. It provides a rare opportunity to hear the views of a specialist from another discipline,…

Below The Piazza del Campo in Siena. On the right is the city hall, the Palazzo Pubblico, with its distinctive pointed arches. The angular brick façade in the background on the left belongs to the Basilica di San Francesco.

Siena’s medieval monuments

As the Tuscan city of Siena grew in prosperity, its citizens made their mark through magnificent art and architecture, from aristocratic towers to allegorical frescoes. Historian Jane Stevenson takes us on a tour of its medieval monuments.

Opposite Detail of a lararium (small shrine for the household gods) from the House of the Wooden Shrine, Herculaneum,1st century AD. Size: 163 x 73cm above The ruins of Herculaneum, with the modern town above the site.

Wooden wonders of Herculaneum

An astonishing array of wooden objects has survived from Herculaneum, carbonised by the volcanic eruption that destroyed the town. This invaluable material may be less showy than the celebrated marble and bronze statuary, but it was still used for everything from beams and boats to purses and small shrines, as Dalu Jones finds out.

Left The main courtyard of the renovated Farnese home in Parma, the Palazzo della Pilotta, with contemporary artist Maurizio Nannucci’s neon installation Time Past, Present, and Future.

Palatial pleasures in Parma

The former palace of the Farnese family in Parma contains no fewer than five cultural institutions. Dalu Jones is our guide to the recently renovated Pilotta complex, where the dukes of Parma put art, archaeology, and theatre to use.

Seasons and the city

Even reputable observers like Pliny the Younger often ended up at the mercy of the competence of later scribes. As his writings only survive as copies, it may be no more than a scribal slip of the hand that immortalised August as the month when Pompeii met its fate.

Opposite page A striking reconstruction of Ötzi in the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology. He is shown with replicas of some of the kit and clothing found with him, including an unfinished bow. left The South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano. below This digital table allows visitors to

Ötzi’s one-man show

On 19 September 1991, two hikers made an alarming discovery high in the Alps. Travelling off the beaten track, they saw a human corpse in a gulley, and imagined they had stumbled across an ill-fated mountaineer. Instead, this was just the latest twist in an extraordinary murder mystery. Investigators soon realised that the victim had met his fate in prehistory. Now, over three decades on, the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology is showcasing the vivid light shed on Copper Age life thanks to the study of this man and his possessions. Richard Hodges reports.

PICTURED A view of Timpone della Motta, looking over the sanctuary at the top of the hill towards the Ionian coast. Excavations here are shedding fascinating new light on the

Glass beads, ritual deposits, and laser beams: a sanctuary on Timpone della Motta entangled in networks of trade and resettling

Thousands of votive objects have been found buried in ritual deposits at a hilltop sanctuary in southern Italy. Cristina Boschetti, Jan Kindberg Jacobsen, Gloria Mittica, Eva Mortensen, and Rubina Raja take us to the excavations at the summit of Timpone della Motta and tie the findings together with the archaeology and history of the site. Our journey, though, begins in a laboratory in Orléans.

Exploring Etruscan endurance

Recent investigations in southern Tuscany have found a Late Etruscan and Roman Republican village, manufacturing district, sanctuary, and a necropolis.

Domitian

Domitian: dominus et deus

Are bad Roman emperors really that different from good Roman emperors? Nathalie de Haan and Eric M Moormann look at the case of Domitian, an accomplished military man and prolific builder who emulated Augustus but was reviled as a new Nero.

ABOVE The Mausoleum of Augustus, as seen in the summer of 2017. The poor state of the monument in 2014 the 2,000th anniversary of Augustus’ death helped to prompt the establishment of LoveItaly.

Tracy Roberts and LoveItaly

Based in Rome, LoveItaly is now in its seventh year and its accent is decidedly American and not patrician. It owes everything to the dynamism of a Californian who is every bit as Roman as the Romans.

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Exhibitions from around the world- October 2021

Due to changing coronavirus measures, the dates listed below may have changed since we went to print, and museums and galleries may close. Check the websites and social-media accounts of the museums for the most up-to-date information and bookings.

OPPOSITE Polychrome wall mosaic showing a harbour and ship, found in the garden of Palazzo Rospigliosi Pallavicini in 1876, during construction work on Rome’s Via Nazionale. Late 2nd / early 3rd century

Rome’s hidden mosaics

With small tiles of marble and glass, Roman mosaicists created intricate mythological images, realistic scenes from nature, and other complex compositions to decorate the floors and walls of tombs, sanctuaries, and homes. Dalu Jones explores some mosaic masterpieces normally hidden in stores in Rome’s museums.

World News

• Glass beads shed light on Pre-Columbian trade
• X-ray of a pregnant mummy
• Constantine the Great reunited with a messing finger