Ancient Etruscans, Modern Jews: Disappearance and Memory
Svenska Institutet I Rom
Via Omero, 14
Roma
Data evento
25 Febbraio 2025
The ancient Etruscans did exist, and now they do not exist anymore, besieged, defeated, assimilated by the ancient Romans. The conceptualization of the Etruscans as a community betrayed by history, marginalized, and silenced by a more dominant force resonates deeply in the emotional experience of visiting an Etruscan archeological site like the necropolis of Cerveteri, no matter how historically inaccurate this idea may be. This gives an interesting turn to the traditional rhetorical motive known as “ubi sunt”, adding the ideas of primordial diversity, an ancestral defeat, and an irreparable loss of culture.
This paper will show how modern writers have increasingly expressed anxiety about the loss and the perceived betrayal of the ancient Etruscans and other pre-Roman peoples (i. e. the Samnites) since the rise of pre-Roman archaeology in the 18th–19th centuries (Alessandro Verri, Vincenzo Cuoco, Giosue Carducci). Additionally, it will show the recurrence of the Etruscan “metaphor” in modern texts and movies dealing with the memory of the Shoah, such as Giorgio Bassani’s Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini, Luchino Visconti’s Vaghe stelle dell’Orsa, and Elie Wiesel’s L’eternité etrusque.