- chapter 48: Foreign artists in Etruria –
stylistic accomplishments of Greek art of the Classical period, like those of the great artists
Polykleitos or Pheidias, have been assimilated, although we cannot exclude the possibility
that at least some sculpture could be the work of Greek masters who emigrated to Etruria.
One immediate effect of the defeats at Cumae and Elba and the subsequent blocking of
commerce in the southern Etruscan ports was the crisis in Attic vase production, which no
longer had access to the metropolitan ports just mentioned. The reception of Attic vases at
Populonia in northern Etruria and at Numana and Spina in the middle and upper Adriatic
is not comparable quantitatively to what had occurred at Caere, Tarquinia and Vulci in
the sixth century and in the fi rst decades of the fi fth century bc. This is undoubtedly the
result of the political strategy of Syracuse, which succeeded in punishing its rival Athens
in the industrial and commercial sector. The Attic potters and vase-painters had trouble
surviving in their own country and emigrated to various sites in the Mediterranean, where
they founded workshops: at Kertsch in the Black Sea, in Sicily, Apulia, Lucania, Campania
and also Etruria. The city with the advantage in Etruscan territory is Falerii, the fi rst city
approached as one ascends the Tiber Valley (Veii having been occupied and destroyed by
the Romans in 396 bc), where in the fi rst half of the fourth century bc several Athenian-
trained vase-painters were working, for instance the Diespater, Nazzano, Aurora, and Foied
Painters, who for the most part produced large vases for the symposium (kraters, stamnoi)
decorated with Dionysiac themes; moreover, they were responsible for the transmission
into Etruria of Greek myths and cults (Beazley 1947, pp. 70–112). They were integrated
into Faliscan society, insomuch as they used the local language for the labels of personages
represented. Their pupils would have worked during the entire second half of the century
in other Etruscan cities: Caere, Tarquinia, Vulci, Orvieto, Chiusi, Volterra. To the fi rst half
of the fourth century bc is dated the activity of other painters of Etruscan red-fi gured vases,
who arrived in other centers of the region and brought with them the experience of Attic or
Magna Graecian masters. In this context the Arnò Painter, originally from Lucania, began
his career as a vase-painter at Tarentum and continued in Etruria, where he is recognized as
the Perugia Painter (Gilotta 2003, pp. 211–213).
Two trends, Pergamene and Attic, are manifested in Hellenistic Etruria, in production
of architectural terracottas and of cinerary urns in the northern cities (Volterra, Chiusi,
Perugia: see Fig. 48.6); they show the assimilation of contemporary Greek art (see several
papers in Martelli-Cristofani 1977; Maetzke 1992). It cannot be rules out that the
Figure 48.6 Hellenistic urn of Volterran type, death of Myrtilos, alabaster. Museo Archeologico
Nazionale di Firenze. Courtesy of Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Toscana.