- Francesco de Angelis –
urgent issues of contemporary politics, in particular that of succession. The two volumes
into which the work is divided came out in 1726 but are dated to 1723 and 1724,
so that each of them is dedicated to the then ruling Grand Duke, respectively Cosimo
III (who died on 31 October 1723) and Gian Gastone. The two frontispieces with the
ruler’s name, the two portraits following each of them, Thomas Coke’s distinct prefatory
epistles addressing Cosimo III and Gian Gastone – everything contributes to emphasize
and visualize at the very outset of the treatise the wish for an orderly transition from
one Medici to the next. All the same, Buonarroti must have been aware that asserting
Etruscan regality in a scholarly work was not suffi cient to preserve the autonomy of the
Grand Duchy; and indeed, shortly before Buonarroti’s death in 1733, when Gian Gastone
was still ruling, the Spanish troops accompanying the designated successor Don Carlos
entered into Leghorn. Buonarroti’s use of the past for present purposes was more subtle,
and focused on practice rather than on content. In fact, it is the very engagement with
Etruria’s history, regardless of the specifi c nature of its ancient political regime, that
allowed a redefi nition of the Tuscan élites as cultural élites, who through their erudite
interests would grant the continuity of Etruscan identity even after the Medici’s demise
and thereby open a new chapter in the study of the Etruscans.
NOTES1 Main bibliography on Dempster and Buonarroti: Cristofani 1983; Gallo 1986; Leighton and
Castelino 1990; Marchesano 2002; de Angelis 2009; Gialluca and Reynolds 2009.
2 See Cristofani 1978: 583–585; Leighton and Castelino 1990: 347.
3 Dempster 1726: vol. 2, p. 363.
4 See, for example, Buonarroti 1726: 74, 75–76, 108–109.
5 Buonarroti 1726: 3.
6 S. Maffei, Osservazioni letterarie, vol. 3, Verona: J. Vallarsi, 1738, pp. 241–242.
7 Cipriani 1980.
8 Dempster 1726: vol. 2, p. 453; see also ibid., p. 451–453; vol. I, p. 210.
9 Dempster 1726: vol. 2, p. 462.
10 Dempster 1726: vol. 1, p. 226; see also ibid., p. 106, 218–219; vol. 2, p. 4
11 Dempster 1726: vol. 1, pp. 106–111
12 Dempster 1726: vol. 1, p. 105, 117, 136, 190.
13 Dempster 1726: vol. 1, p. 103, 142, 160, 194, 227, 319, 335.
14 Dempster 1726: vol. 1, p. 104, 298.
15 Verga 1990: 13–45; Verga 1999: 130–131.
16 Buonarroti 1726: 4–5.
17 Buonarroti 1726: 16–17, 18, 26, 34–35, 43.
18 Buonarroti 1726: 35, 75; see also Demspter 1726: vol. 1, p. 281 note 1. For examples of such
objects, see Chapters 54 and 57.
19 Buonarroti 1726: 21, 53, 78–79.
BIBLIOGRAPHYBuonarroti, F. (1726) “Explicationes et conjecturae” in Dempster (1726), vol. 2.
Cipriani, G. (1980) Il mito etrusco nel rinascimento fi orentino, Florence: L. S. Olschki.
Cristofani, M. (1978) “Sugli inizi dell’ ‘etruscheria.’ La pubblicazione del ‘De Etruria regali’ di
Thomas Dempster,” Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome. Antiquité, 90: 577–62; reprinted in La
scoperta degli Etruschi. Archeologia e antiquaria nel ‘700 (1983), Rome: CNR, pp. 13–43.