CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

ETRUSCAN TOWN PLANNING AND

RELATED STRUCTURES

Claudio Bizzarri

W

hat the Etruscan city – once it could be called a city^1 – looked like depends in great
part on the structures of an immaterial nature, those social structures functional
in the urban fabric for which they were created, as well as the purely material aspects.
One of the most notable cases often dealt with is the forum of Rome,^2 the political center
of the Urbs, which entailed reclamation work beginning with one of its kings of Etruscan
origins.^3
The strong bond between Rome and the territories that stretched northwards from the
“litus etruscum”^4 also determined the introduction of techniques and knowledge borrowed
in turn from the Etruscans in the Mediterranean area, thus highlighting the vast and
fertile cultural exchange already present in the Archaic period and which also touched on
the territories south of Rome.^5
In the panorama of Etruria proper, with the passage of time, studies regarding the
major cities and smaller centers have gradually focused on the planning of spaces. It
may be relevant to mention a few before going on to provide a swift overview of the
development of private architecture, characterized by the extreme perishability of the
materials used, and then turning to a symbolic case: the settlement of Orvieto.
Even recently the existence, or at least the political importance, of the Etruscan
dodecapolis^6 has been questioned. While on the one hand it does not invalidate the
current analysis, it is a factor that nonetheless introduces an element of breakdown
that helps us to understand, as previously in the funerary fi eld, the extent and type of
autonomy adopted by each individual community in the fi eld of town planning. It should
not be forgotten that the structural layout precedent to a sort of monumentalization of
the settlement and the aspects connected to the geo-pedological nature are determining
factors in some of the choices made. The long history of archaeological studies in Etruria
must, of course, be kept in mind, where initially attention was centered on an exploration
of the rich necropoleis rather than the inhabited centers that often, but not always, were
located underneath the medieval and modern settlements.^7
In a recent article Stephan Steingräber^8 listed a series of elements on which he based
his study of Etruscan town planning. On the whole his opinions can be validated,