ABSTRACT

The publication of Thomas Dempster’s treatise De Etruria regali in 1726, promoted by Thomas Coke and Filippo Buonarroti one century after the work had been composed, is an event that not only marks the rebirth of the interest for Etruscan antiquities in the eighteenth century, but also coincides with a more general renewal of antiquarianism in Tuscany and in Italy. This renewal does not simply occur on the scholarly level but has a strong political dimension. As the very title of the treatise suggests, its main aim is to af rm and celebrate the monarchic character of Etruria. The temporal distance separating the editors of the work from its author adds a further layer of complexity, since neither the intellectual nor the political conditions were the same in the seventeenth and in the eighteenth century. This chapter intends to jointly examine these aspects, all of which are important for our understanding of the genesis of Etruscan studies in the modern age.1