In the recently refurbished rooms of Palazzo Mazzetti in Asti, a major exhibition about the Etruscans, the main cultural link between the Mediterranean and Celtic Europe.
After nearly half a century, Piedmont is hosting a major exhibition about the Etruscans, the main cultural link between the Mediterranean and Celtic Europe. The exhibition will enable the public to see an impressive selection of little-known Etruscan and Greek antiquities, on loan from the Vatican Museums and Italy’s most important Etruscan collections. This important exhibition of about 250 artefacts is being staged in the recently refurbished rooms of Palazzo Mazzetti in Asti, restored thanks to the support of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Asti. The layout of the show can be seen in the attached catalogue. The first part dwells on the theme of the Homeric epics, highlighting the spread of the heroic ideal of the soldier-warrior and accompanies visitors to the exhibition in the same way that the poems transmitted new ideals of living and behaviour to the Etruscan and Italic aristocracies. The second part of the exhibition concentrates on the Etruscan symposium. Many of the objects on display have never been shown before – in particular, the bronze crested Villanovan helmet, hidden for centuries beneath the waters of the River Tanaro and discovered in the late 19th century – or are little-known, and other objects, on loan from the store-rooms of the Vatican Museums, are on show here for the first time. There are some good reconstructions of painted tombs, such as the ‘Tomb of the Black Sow’. The exhibition also pays tribute to the artistic vogue for things Etruscan which became popular in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. Finally, there is the first chance to see the study commissioned from Pelagio Palagi by King Carlo Alberto of Savoy, from the castle at Racconigi outside Turin.