Collezionisti, accademie, musei: storie del mondo etrusco dal XVI al XIX secolo

Italian edition only

This book presents the proceedings of two international conferences on the Etruscan heritage and collecting in Europe from the 16th to the 19th century held in the splendid setting of the Palazzone di Cortona (1–2 November 2014 and 29–31 January 2016). Organized by the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa and the Municipal Council of Cortona, these events marked the culmination of the research project “The Etruscan Academy of Cortona: Collecting and the Republic of Letters in 18th-Century Europe”, supervised by Maurizio Ghelardi and directed by Ilaria Bianchi.

Great scholarly importance attaches to the conferences, which addressed subjects connected with museology and collecting that have become a focus of antiquarian interest in recent years. The Etruscan world and collecting are also at the centre of the work of the Fondazione Luigi Rovati, whose Etruscan museum in Milan endeavours to play an active part in the study and valorization of the archaeological heritage, not least by developing solid relations with academic institutions inside and outside Italy. This approach could hardly fail to include Cortona and the Accademia Etrusca, with which collaboration has been established in support of research and scholarly debate.

The Fondazione Luigi Rovati readily espoused the project of publishing the contributions of the scholars present at the conferences as a preliminary step towards in-depth examination of the processes whereby the collections of the major Italian and European museums were built up.