- Françoise Gaultier –
decoration. The fi nest are decorated like the fi bula from the Tomb of the Warrior of
Tarquinia in the Berlin Museum, an openwork fi ligree motif,^30 or like the fi bula from
Vulci in the British Museum or the Corsini fi bula from Marsiliana d’Albegna in the
Florence Museo Archeologico, with small three-dimensional fi gures made in two halves
and detailed in granulation, distributed over the entire length of the bow and the catch-
plate, which are decorated with geometric motifs in granulation.^31
The fi bulae with bow a sanguisuga also furnish varied decoration. The oldest are
ornamented with geometric motifs, no longer engraved but drawn using granulation,^32
the latest can be decorated with motifs of oriental origin (sphinx, walking griffi ns),
stamped^33 or drawn in granulation: both types are well illustrated in the Tomb of the
Lictor of Vetulonia (Figs 50.3, 50.4). Some have recourse to particularly sophisticated
techniques: on a few examples the bow and the upper surface of the catch-plate can be
constructed by a juxtaposition of short and thin gold ribbons bent at the ends to form
bows to add plastic effects to the graphic decoration of the catch-plate.^34
The workmanship of Orientalizing jewelry, in agreement with an art that is deliberately
ostentatious, is not concerned with either excess or overload: the decoration of the great
pectoral from the Regolini Galassi Tomb (Vatican Museo Gregoriano Etrusco) (Fig.
6.12), which is decorated with multiple stamped rows of motifs of Eastern type, and the
large ornamental plaques from the Barberini and Bernardini Tombs of Praeneste (Villa
Giulia Museum), which is decorated with a multitude of real and fantastic animal fi gures,
play upon their repetition and emphasize rather the overall effect of the details, yet are
Figure 50.3 Fibula a sanguisuga, gold, with stamped decoration. From the Tomb of the Lictor,
Vetulonia. Circa 630 bc. Florence, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. 72258.Figure 50.4 Fibula a sanguisuga, gold, with granulated decoration a pulviscolo. From the Tomb of the
Lictor, Vetulonia, circa 630 bc. Florence, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. 77261.