CHAPTER TWO

MASSIMO PALLOTTINO’S “ORIGINS”

IN PERSPECTIVE

Giovanna Bagnasco Gianni

D

uring the 1920s and 1930s of the last century, some decades after Italian unifi cation
took place (1861), scholars were challenged to shape a Prehistory for the newborn
nation together with her history of art. However, such a need occurred after some anti-
Roman feelings had been growing during the previous century. They appeared together
with the appraisal of the multifaceted aspects of the populations of the ancient Peninsula,
showing a richness in culture and freedom that would shortly thereafter be strongly
limited by the power of Rome (Harari 2012: 14–16).
Such a philo-Italic and philo-Etruscan attitude was also in effect during the 1920s, at
the beginnings of the Fascist period, when a number of scholars were alerted to take part
in the creation of the “Italian past”. Among them there was Alessandro Della Seta who
was of Jewish faith and thus destined to be relieved of his important appointments later on
(1939). His outstanding life and scientifi c production refl ect a twofold attitude towards
the appearance of the Etruscans in the historical scenario. On the one hand he expressed his
opinion about the need for shifting from a perspective focused on the problem of “origin”
to that of “formation” (Della Seta 1922: 189–193); on the other hand he was convinced
that the Etruscans had a Near Eastern origin. Therefore, when he became Director of the
Regia Scuola archeologica di Atene he started excavations on the island of Lemnos in 1926,
in order to assess the cultural environment of the “Tyrrhenian” stele, discovered there at
Kaminia, because it was inscribed with a language very close to Etruscan (see Chapter 22).
Such a deep concern for the Etruscan culture, however, would be neglected after the
great exhibition “Mostra Augustea della Romanità” (1937), that defi nitely showed that
the Fascist regime had chosen Augustan Rome as the model for its propaganda.
Before such a strong Augustan revival put an end to the recognition of the Etruscans
as the hard core of the common Italian past, nearly at the same time as Della Seta’s
investigations to unravel the problem of Etruscan origins, something related to such issues

• but independent from the Italian political environment – was going on. In late March
  and early April 1927, D.H. Lawrence visited Etruria and wrote his last travel book, Etruscan
  Places, published only in 1932 (Lawrence 2011). His quotations of the authors he read in
  order to become acquainted with the Etruscans – George Dennis, Theodor Mommsen, Fritz