- Vincent Jolivet –
Figure 8.22 The remarkable mastery of bronze-working by Etruscan artisans fostered the birth and
development, in the course of the Hellenistic period, of concurrent production in Latium, notably at
Palestrina where the masterpiece is incontestably the Ficoroni cista of the second half of the fourth
century. As the inscription it carries indicates, this sort of wedding basket found at Palestrina was made
at Rome by an artisan with a Campanian name, Novios Plautios, for a certain Dindia Macolnia who
made a gift of it to her daughter (Rome, Museo Etrusco di Villa Giulia; Rasenna, Fig. 592).Figure 8.23 Among the other masterworks of the last Etruscan bronze-smiths, the statue of the
Orator found near Perugia, dated to the end of the second century or the beginning of the next century,
demonstrates at the same time the extraordinary expertise still present in the old Etruscan cities, and
the purely Roman character of their production; the long votive dedication inscribed on the hem of his
toga, written for one Aule Metellus, son of Vel and Vesi, is written entirely in Etruscan (Florence, Museo
Archeologico Nazionale; Camporeale 2001, p. 72).