- Laura Ambrosini –
Connected to the Faliscan is the workshop where the Painter of London F 484 and
Painter of the Vatican Biga workshop, whose products circulate mainly in Vulci. These
vases, together with others, refer to Lucanian products. The Campanizzante Group^51 in
the second quarter of the fourth century bc produced vases in southern Etruria and Falerii
with a Campanizing/Paestanizing language. The Settecamini Painter worked in internal
Etruria (Chiusi or Orvieto) inspired by Faliscan painters. The Vanth Painter,^52 with
Faliscan training, in his workshop in Orvieto produced monumental vases for the tombs.
Clusium Volaterrae Group:^53 in the third quarter of the fourth century bc, the Clusium
Group, made up of the Sarteano and Montediano Painters, spreads to Chiusi and the Val
di Chiana producing kylikes, plastic vases and small skyphoi; while later, around 320 bc,
a couple of workshop teachers moved to Volterra and specialized in the production of
large column-kraters (kelebai) (Fig. L-29-57 Turfa 321), which were intended primarily
for funeral use, and stamnoi. The tondi of kylikes are decorated with scenes related to the
Dionysian or erotic themes. This production does not seem derived, as was supposed,
from a branch of the mid-fourth century bc Faliscan kylikes. The leading fi gure of the
Group is the Montediano Painter. The production of northern Etruria has three phases:
“early” (320–300 bc) with the plain style of the Group of Transition, the “ornate” style
with the Painter of Hesione and his circle, a fully-developed phase (300–275 bc) with
the Painter of the Pigmy Trumpeter (or Monteriggioni Painter), the Painter of the Tuscan
Column and the Nun Painter. The scenes with a meaning, often funereal, seem to depict
rites of initiation and/or passage of persons related to the sphere of Dionysus.^54
In the area of Vulci it is possible to locate the Group of Alcestis, whose most famous
vase, by the Painter of Alcestis, with the embrace of Admetus and Alcestis, and bearing
the inscribed names of characters, dates from around 330 bc. Still in Vulci, the Turmuca
Group depicts in a kalyx-krater the shade of Andromache (hinthi Aturmucas) (330–300
bc) accompanied by Pentasila, both veiled and cloaked, in front of Charun and a girl.
It is a Nekyia scene where the three girls are waiting on the shore of the Acheron to
be ferried by Charon. The production of Vulci enriched the red-fi gured pottery with
iconographic and symbolic-religious meanings that are evident in the Funnel Group.^55
The Funnel Group, considered Vulcian (possibly with a Tarquinian branch), was
brought back recently by Gilotta to craftsmen with Faliscan training. To the Hague
Painter, active around 300 bc, leader of the Frontal Workshop of the Funnel Group, are
assigned two twin stamnoi, the Fould stamnoi,^56 one with Dionysiac scenes and the other
with stories of Achilles and a kalyx-krater. He is a skilled designer, attentive to spatial
effects, chiaroscuro and anatomy.
The Faliscan workshops at the mid-fourth century bc begin to produce for the
middle class more standardized vases, especially kylikes, fi rst with the relief line (class
α – Würzburg 818), and then without the relief line (class β – Wurzburg 820), with
themes mainly Dionysian. In class α is the Foied Group, a group of at least four kylikes
(around 350 bc) with a painted inscription “foied vino pafo cra carefo” (“now I drink wine,
tomorrow I run out of it”), which bears a representation of the embrace between Fufl uns
(Dionysus) and Semla (Semele). Among the later kylikes the Satyr and Dolphin Group^57
stand out, showing an interesting selective use of cartoons along with the paterae of the
Forum Group,^58 named by the discovery of a fragment in the Roman Forum in Rome, in
the Cloaca Maxima.
This is a production of paterae with red fi gures of the last quarter of the fourth century
bc by two workshops, one Faliscan (perhaps in Falerii Veteres) and one in Tarquinia. The