ABSTRACT

The rediscovery of Etruscan culture in modern times dates back to the mid-nineteenth century when a movement for the promotion of the ancient past occurred. It was motivated both by scholarly curiosity for all things Etruscan and by a political will to appropriate the prestige of a brilliant civilization. Reminding citizens of the Etruscan past was rst used by the Florentine Republic, at a time when it had designs on the neighboring cities; Tuscany was depicted as the most ancient cradle of Republican liberty: in that sense, it can be described as an “Etruscan myth”.1 The Florentine chronicler, G. Villani, in his Nuova Cronica, and the Florentine chancellor, L. Bruni, in his Historiarum Florentini populi libri XII, extolled an autochthonous Etruria that was independent from Rome. With the stranglehold of the Medici on local power in the fteenth century, Etruria was then considered in its monarchic aspect. L. B. Alberti, in his De re aedifi catoria (1485), prefaced with a dedication by Angelus Politianus to Lorenzo the Magni cent, mentioned the “admirable things that were said about the Etruscan kings.” Among the Etruscan kings, the rst to be taken into account is Porsenna. L. B. Alberti, B. Peruzzi and the Sangallo brothers, basing themselves on an account given by Varro and passed on by Pliny the Elder,2 reconstructed his extraordinary monumental tomb with a maze.