Giuseppe S a s s at el I i and Elisabetta G ov ias a frontier center for commercial purposes, open to contacts with neighboring peoples
and the peoples of the opposite shore of the Adriatic. During the Orientalizing period
the two centers are fully integrated into the commercial circuits associated with all of
Tyrrhenian Etruria, and they have furnished extraordinary evidence of the culture of the
principes (“princes”), among which stands out the monumental sculpture in stone and
the acquisition of writing in Bologna, and the elaborate funerary rituals of Verucchio.
The Etruscans of Bologna then transmit the art of writing to all other populations of
northern Italy, west to the Celtic Golasecca culture and east to the Venetic culture of
Este. In these areas, the Etruscans, again via Bologna and the Po Valley, also distribute
manufactured goods as well as important cultural and productive impulses particularly
if we but think of all the “art of the situlae” peculiar to the Venetic area, but originating
from an influx of Tyrrhenian craftsmen, coming from Bologna.
The political and economic order of Etruria Padana (Etruria of the Po Valley) in
the earliest phases (Villanovan and Orientalizing) hinged primarily on Bologna and
Verucchio and a dense network of smaller towns, widely disseminated in the territory
since the mid-sixth century BC, shows a radical transformation linked with the broader
picture of the Tyrrhenian and Western Mediterranean. The conflicts between the
Etruscans, Greeks and Carthaginians end in naval clashes in the upper Tyrrhenian Sea
and begin the gradual erosion of the Etruscans’ unchallenged dominion of the sea. The
increasing risks along the routes in the northern Tyrrhenian Sea led to an inevitable
decline of trade with Celtic Europe, until then channelled along the route to Marseilles
and the Rhone Valley. It is at this time that the Po region assumes a new importance
because of its access to the Adriatic Sea, a trade route known to the Greeks for a
long time but only now fully valued on the basis of contacts with the Celts across
the Alps. The entire Po Valley was reorganized and the founding ex novo of the cities
of Marzabotto in the Bolognese Apennines, Spina on the Adriatic coast and Mantua
just north of the Po and on the River Mincio, as well as the “refounding” of Bologna,
the capital of this new system, which allows the creation of a formidable economic
Figure 15 .1 Map of Etruria Vadana from ninth to eighth century BC (Dipartimento
di Archeologia di Bologna).Linea di costa anticaEtruria PadanadiEtruria Padana