Oltre il riflesso. Storia, iconografia e società negli specchi etruschi del Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Parma

Despite the historic and archaeological interest which takes on the Etruscan mirrors collection of the National Archaeological Museum of Parma, an exhaustive publication concerning this subject was missing to this day. The present book intends to fill this gap. It is divided into three distinct but complementary sections. The first one, which deals with the antiquarian aspect, recounts the main steps of the forming of the collection, and proposes a historical and critical analysis based on the didactic and aesthetic requirements of the first half of the XIXth century. The second part, strictly archaeological, consists of a detailed catalogue of the different pieces, and tries to reconstitute the original cultural context particularly with a comparative stylistic study. Finally, the large number of illustrations and photographs gives the reader a direct access to the studied objects. So articulated the book offers a complete prospect over the studied materiel and over the history of the Etruscan mirrors collection from Parma. The documentary section analyses contribution of the historic archives of the XIXth century - correspondence of the Museum Management, the register of acquisitions, the donations and the exchanges. It also covers in a synthetic way the forming history of the Etruscan mirrors collection, gradually enriched by the purchases of Greek, Roman, Etruscan and Egyptian objects on the antique market, made possible by the generosities of Duchess Marie-Louise of Habsburg. Indeed, demonstrating a vanguard cultural policy compared to the other pre-Unitarian Italian States, the sovereign's decree, October 24th 1817, had declared antiquities and excavations on the territory of Parma "useful for the State as sources of public education" and had granted them the status of "duchy". It is exactly in this public interest perspective and in this will to collect and to offer in example the antique inheritance that the Museum Director at the time, Michele Lopez, decided to create a room intended to welcome the most precious core of the Museum collections, within which the Etruscan mirrors figure. The decoration of this room, where is at present exposed the famous sculptures cycle of the basilica of the Roman municipium of Veleia, was entrusted to the painter Francesco Scaramuzza, who decorated the ceiling of wax polished paintings representing "…l’Archeologia; le Scienze e le Arti che la soccorrono e quelle che da lei ricevon lume; le Divinità, i Monumenti e i Simboli principali o più noti de’ quattro celebri popoli di cui a preferenza si occupa [Greeks, Romans, Etruscans and Egyptians]; le immagini di quegli uomini egregi i quali illustrando le antichità de’ popoli stessi maggiormente contribuirono a far progredire la Scienza" (Lopez 1844). It is a real didactic program, typical of the XIXth century archaeological mentality, to which the project of Lopez itself was certainly not irrelevant. The archaeological study of the pieces occupies an important place. The corpus, constituted of nineteen copies, presents a rather homogeneous typology: it considers almost exclusively mirrors among which the handle and the disc are melted in a single piece, and engraved for the greater part. On the other hand, the iconographic analysis reveals a considerable variety of topics, stemming from the mundus muliebris and, more specifically, from the bridal sphere. A piece notably turns out of a quite particular interest: a mirror representing Hercules at a spring, with Filae (Iolaus) and Turms (Hermes). Indeed, following Gerhard's edition (Etruskische Spiegel II, tav. CXXVII), all the studies considered the example as lost. The analysis also allowed verifying the exact origin of the object: it was supposed to come from Cascina in Val di Cecina, according to Gehrard himself, but actually this one was discovered in the necropolis of Belora at Riparbella, in the Val di Cecina. Beyond its topographic implications, this correction is important because it allows specifying the environment of production and the context of receipt, very different from the one to which it was attributed up to here. The last section presents in an extensive file all the pieces accompanied with photos and drawings of the front side as of the reverse of the objects, in actual size when it is possible, according to the indications supplied for the publications in the Corpus Speculorum Etruscorum. Specific indices organized by typology, chronology and zones of production can be found in there.

Affiliations

UCLouvainSSH/INCA - Institut des civilisations, arts et lettres

Citations

APA
Chicago
FWB

Cavalieri, M., & et al. (2014). Oltre il riflesso. Storia, iconografia e società negli specchi etruschi del Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Parma. Brepols. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/62092