Imagining the Etruscans: Modern European Perceptions of an Ancient Italian Civilization

Abstract The Etruscans, ancient people of pre-Roman Italy, have been the subject of lively discussions among both scholars and disseminators of popular pseudo-scientific theories from the late Humanistic age, an interest and popularity that reached a crescendo in the 18th to 20th centuries. This paper aims to explore the ideological features of the foundation of the highly specialized but often self-referential discipline, the so-called “Etruscology” that finally developed in the 20th century, with particular reference to the complicated connections between the very Italian territorial context of Etruscan civilization and the European dimension of its reception and popularization.