Etruscans and Etruscan Studies between Italy and Europe

Since the late Humanistic age and by a very crescendo in the 18th and 20th centuries, the Etruscans, an ancient people of pre-Roman Italy, have been and still are subject matter for lively discussions among scholars and for a great popularity in pseudo-scientific dissemination. The seminar aims at exploring the ideological features of the foundation process of a highly specialized, but often self-referential discipline, the so-called "Etruscology", which finally developed in the first half of the 20th cent., with particular reference to the rather complicated connections between the very Italian territorial context of Etruscan civilization and the European dimension of its reception and popularization.