Here are 100 books that Etruscan Art fans have personally recommended if you like
Etruscan Art.
Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I have been fascinated with ancient civilizations since my parents, amateur historians, moved our family to Saudi Arabia in the early 1980s, and we began to travel extensively around the Mediterranean, especially Greece, Italy, Egypt, and Jordan. I went on to study classical art and archaeology in graduate school in England, Scotland, and Germany, and excavated in Greece, Italy, and North Africa. My own research ranges widely, from the Etruscans to sport and entertainment in the Roman empire (about which I made a film with the Smithsonian, Rome’s Chariot Superstar). I currently live in Chicago, where I teach at a university.
If there is a Bible of Etruscan studies, this is it. The author is a revered authority in the field, having worked closely with Etruscan objects at the British Museum for many decades. Her “cultural history” is firmly rooted in the evidence of the Etruscan soil itself, and she is particularly adept at using material culture to dispense with the various Greek and Roman myths about the “mysterious” Etruscans. While the book is a mighty tome, both in its scholarly heft and physical weight, no serious student of the Etruscans can do without it.
This comprehensive survey of Etruscan civilization, from its origin in the Villanovan Iron Age in the ninth century B.C. to its absorption by Rome in the first century B.C., combines well-known aspects of the Etruscan world with new discoveries and fresh insights into the role of women in Etruscan society. In addition, the Etruscans are contrasted to the Greeks, whom they often emulated, and to the Romans, who at once admired and disdained them. The result is a compelling and complete picture of a people and a culture. This in-depth examination of Etruria examines how differing access to mineral wealth,…
The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.
On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…
I have been fascinated with ancient civilizations since my parents, amateur historians, moved our family to Saudi Arabia in the early 1980s, and we began to travel extensively around the Mediterranean, especially Greece, Italy, Egypt, and Jordan. I went on to study classical art and archaeology in graduate school in England, Scotland, and Germany, and excavated in Greece, Italy, and North Africa. My own research ranges widely, from the Etruscans to sport and entertainment in the Roman empire (about which I made a film with the Smithsonian, Rome’s Chariot Superstar). I currently live in Chicago, where I teach at a university.
If you are looking for a short, accessible, and up-to-date introduction to the Etruscans, this is it. Like other works in the Very Short Introductions series, Smith’s scope is broad, his tone is chatty, and his discussion is highly current. Whether you are an undergraduate or a general reader, this book speaks to all audiences.
From around 900 to 400 BC, the Etruscans were the most innovative, powerful, wealthy, and creative people in Italy. Their archaeological record is both substantial and fascinating, including tomb paintings, sculpture, jewellery, and art. In this Very Short Introduction, Christopher Smith explores Etruscan history, culture, language, and customs. Examining the controversial debates about their origins, he explores how they once lived, placing this within the geographical, economic, and political context of the time. Smith concludes by demonstrating how the Etruscans have been studied and perceived throughout the ages, and the impact this has had on our understanding of their place…
I have been fascinated with ancient civilizations since my parents, amateur historians, moved our family to Saudi Arabia in the early 1980s, and we began to travel extensively around the Mediterranean, especially Greece, Italy, Egypt, and Jordan. I went on to study classical art and archaeology in graduate school in England, Scotland, and Germany, and excavated in Greece, Italy, and North Africa. My own research ranges widely, from the Etruscans to sport and entertainment in the Roman empire (about which I made a film with the Smithsonian, Rome’s Chariot Superstar). I currently live in Chicago, where I teach at a university.
This is a rich, encyclopedic-like collection of brief chapters about various aspects of Etruscan culture by all the major scholars (60!) in the field. If you are looking to gain access to Etruscan civilization by randomly reading about particular aspects—from art (the evidence of the earliest portraiture) to women’s lives to sport to engineering to trading contacts—then this is the book for you. All of the chapters are written very accessibly, and—while short—they are packed with information and helpful suggestions for further reading.
The Etruscans can be shown to have made significant, and in some cases perhaps the first, technical advances in the central and northern Mediterranean. To the Etruscan people we can attribute such developments as the tie-beam truss in large wooden structures, surveying and engineering drainage and water tunnels, the development of the foresail for fast long-distance sailing vessels, fine techniques of metal production and other pyrotechnology, post-mortem C-sections in medicine, and more. In art, many technical and iconographic developments, although they certainly happened first in Greece or the Near East, are first seen in extant Etruscan works, preserved in the…
Jake Sledge, a rugged ex-cop turned private eye, teams up with his colossal partner Bobo to navigate the gritty streets of River City.
A murdered lawyer drags them into a web of political intrigue, neo-Nazi thugs, and bloody showdowns. With sharp wit and hard-hitting action, Jake tackles scumbags the only…
I have been fascinated with ancient civilizations since my parents, amateur historians, moved our family to Saudi Arabia in the early 1980s, and we began to travel extensively around the Mediterranean, especially Greece, Italy, Egypt, and Jordan. I went on to study classical art and archaeology in graduate school in England, Scotland, and Germany, and excavated in Greece, Italy, and North Africa. My own research ranges widely, from the Etruscans to sport and entertainment in the Roman empire (about which I made a film with the Smithsonian, Rome’s Chariot Superstar). I currently live in Chicago, where I teach at a university.
Ingrid Rowland is a fabulous writer, with a wide and frankly unrivalled knowledge of the art, architecture, and archaeology of Italy, from the Etruscans to modern day. She spins this little-known “17th-century caper” about the forgery of “Etruscan” artifacts with great verve, drawing the reader in like a good detective yarn. In her telling, what appears at first like a historical footnote ends up having implications far beyond, implicating—and scandalizing—the Vatican itself and beyond.
Bored teenager Curzio Inghirami staged perhaps the most outlandish prank of the seventeenth century when he hatched a wild scheme that preyed on the Italian fixation with ancestry by forging an array of ancient Latin and Etruscan documents. Stashing the counterfeit treasure in scarith (capsules made of hair and mud) near Scornello, Curzio reeled in seventeenth-century Tuscans who were eager to establish proof of their heritage and history. However, despite their excitement, none of these proud Italians could actually read the ancient Etruscan language, and they simply perpetuated the hoax. Written with humor and energy by Renaissance expert Ingrid Rowland,…
I’m an Australian author who lives on the other side of the Pond. I’m a self-confessed Romaholic but my great love is for the Etruscans. My curiosity was first piqued to learn about these people when I saw an Etruscan sarcophagus depicting a couple embracing for eternity. The casket was unusual because women were rarely commemorated in funerary art let alone a couple depicted in such a pose of affection. What ancient society revered women as much as men? Discovering the answer led me to the decadent and mystical Etruscan civilisation and the little-known story of a ten-year siege between Rome and the Etruscan city of Veii.
The Etruscans had already established a sophisticated and cosmopolitan society centuries before the nascent Roman Republic was fighting tribal turf wars. At its peak, Etruria extended from the Po Valley in the north to Campania in the south, with trade routes spreading from the Black Sea through to Africa. The Etruscans had advanced the art of prophecy into a science with a complex codification of beliefs known as the Etrusca Disciplina revealing how to divine the future from thunder and lightning. I found The Religion of the Etruscans essential reading for my research as it provided insights into rites, beliefs, architectural meanings, and sacred texts of these doomed people.
Sadly, there is very little left of Etruscan literature other than religious inscriptions due to the Greeks and Romans destroying their civilisation. However, through recent archaeological digs, more and more has been gleaned as pieced together by the authors of the…
Devotion to religion was the distinguishing characteristic of the Etruscan people, the most powerful civilization of Italy in the Archaic period. From a very early date, Etruscan religion spread its influence into Roman society, especially with the practice of divination. The Etruscan priest Spurinna, to give a well-known example, warned Caesar to beware the Ides of March. Yet despite the importance of religion in Etruscan life, there are relatively few modern comprehensive studies of Etruscan religion, and none in English. This volume seeks to fill that deficiency by bringing together essays by leading scholars that collectively provide a state-of-the-art overview…
I’m an Australian author who lives on the other side of the Pond. I’m a self-confessed Romaholic but my great love is for the Etruscans. My curiosity was first piqued to learn about these people when I saw an Etruscan sarcophagus depicting a couple embracing for eternity. The casket was unusual because women were rarely commemorated in funerary art let alone a couple depicted in such a pose of affection. What ancient society revered women as much as men? Discovering the answer led me to the decadent and mystical Etruscan civilisation and the little-known story of a ten-year siege between Rome and the Etruscan city of Veii.
The ancient world has always held a fascination for me. It must be in my genes because one of my fondest memories is my father telling me stories about the Greek gods. As a kid, I also found a book in our house that had been handed down through generations within my family entitled The Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome by E.M. Berens. This book was published in 1892 but Berens is still in print, no doubt in its umpteenth edition.
My book has a leather cover, the spine frayed so that the webbing that binds the folios is exposed. The pages are mottled, yellowing. It is a treasure. Inside, the lives of the fickle, adulterous, benevolent, or malevolent deities are revealed; their bickering and flaws similar to mortals but their ability to bless, curse, and manipulate man’s fate, divine.
HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.
'This was the slaying of the Minotaur, which put an end forever to the shameful tribute of seven youths and seven maidens which was exacted from the Athenians every nine years.'
The gods, heroes and legends of Greek mythology and their Roman interpretations are as fascinating as they are instructive. They include the almighty Zeus and his many wives; heroic Perseus, slayer of the snake-headed Medusa; Helen of Troy, whose beauty caused a great war; Medea, driven mad by jealousy; and tragic Persephone, doomed to live half of…
Caroline Herschel has always lived in the shadows. Beholden to her wildly popular older brother, William, who rescued her from servitude, she's worked hard to build a life for herself – one where she can go unnoticed and repay the debt she believes she owes him. But when her brother…
I don't write within received categories: our lives aren't lived in categories, but are full of varying realities, whether of home, childhood, marriage, parenthood, fantasy, dream, work, or relaxation, and more all mixed together. I can't write in any other way, however dominant a particular strand or age may be on the surface in a given work.Orpheus Rising may have a child hero, and a fantastic, elegant Edwardian Elephant as a spirit guide, but it let me tell a story of love lost and regained, of family broken and remade, of a father in despair and remade, themes of real importance in any life.
This is the best collection of the Greek Myths I believe, and of course covers the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, the direct inspiration for my book. In the classical myth the poet and musician Orpheus loses his love, Eurydice, and sings his way into Hades, overcoming all opposition, until even Hades agrees to let him have Eurydice back in the living world, so long as he does not look back at her until returned there. Once in daylight he does look back, and loses her forever as she hasn't stepped into daylight too. However, unlike Orpheus my young hero succeeds.
Robert Graves's classic retelling of the Greek Myths is definitive, comprehensive and unparalleled - and available now in the Penguin Classics Deluxe series, featuring a new introduction from Rick Riordan (bestselling author of the Percy Jackson and Olympian series).
Including many of the greatest stories ever told - the labours of Hercules, the voyage of the Argonauts, Theseus and the minotaur, Midas and his golden touch, the Trojan War and Odysseus's journey home - Robert Graves's superb and comprehensive retelling of the Greek myths for a modern audience has been regarded for over fifty years as the definitive version.
I’ve just spent the last few years writing Return to Valetto, about a nearly abandoned village in Umbria and the last ten people who live there. In 2018, I received an NEA grant to conduct research in Italy and I visited about a dozen abandoned and nearly abandoned towns all across Italy. While I was traveling, I immersed myself in books about Italy—from history and biography to memoir and fiction. The books on my list were stepping stones in my education about all things Italian and I hope you find them as transporting as I did!
If you’ve ever fantasized about restoring a crumbling medieval Italian villa, then you’ll get to live that experience vicariously through this memoir.
The author has a wonderful sense of the absurd as she recounts her family’s multi-year efforts to turn a roofless villa into their dream home, complete with a complicated teenage daughter who is trying to find her way in the rural Italian countryside where the family has been transplanted.
Brimming with idiosyncratic and endearing characters.
The author recounts a year she spent in San Orsela, a small town in the Umbrian hils of Italy, sharing portraits of her Italian friends and a celebration of the seasonal cycle
The books I recommend have stayed with me years after I read them. I’ve always been fascinated by my Jewish heritage and the rich traditions of my forebearers. I’ve incorporated some of that heritage in my own work as an author. Most recently, I published a historical novel about the Jewish Ghetto in Rome, which took me down a rabbit hole of research into Jewish literature. I revisited books I’d loved for decades and discovered new books I loved.
I was captivated by this epic tale of Grazia dei Rossi, secretary to the powerful wife of the Pope’s physician and the daughter of a powerful banker.
The book gave me a fascinating peek into Jewish life in Renaissance Italy as Grazia struggles between the temptations of Christian life and the pull of her Jewish heritage.
A sweeping saga of intrigue and romance set during the Italian Renaissance and told through the eyes of Grazia dei Rossi, a young Jewish woman torn between duty and forbidden romance, who wins our hearts with her recorded secrets of love.
Grazia dei Rossi, private secretary to the world-renowned Isabella d’Este, is the daughter of an eminent Jewish banker, the wife of the pope’s Jewish physician, and the lover of a Christian prince. In a “secret book,” written as a legacy for her son, she records her struggles to choose between the seductions of the Christian world and a return…
Rodney Bradford comes into Lindsay's restaurant, offers to buy her small house for double its value, eats her brownies, and drops dead on the sidewalk in front. Next, her almost-ex-husband offers to sign the divorce papers, but only if she'll give him her small,…
I’ve just spent the last few years writing Return to Valetto, about a nearly abandoned village in Umbria and the last ten people who live there. In 2018, I received an NEA grant to conduct research in Italy and I visited about a dozen abandoned and nearly abandoned towns all across Italy. While I was traveling, I immersed myself in books about Italy—from history and biography to memoir and fiction. The books on my list were stepping stones in my education about all things Italian and I hope you find them as transporting as I did!
In many ways, this sort of book has gone out of style since it was published in the 1960s.
It’s an opinionated and ambitious portrayal of the Italian psyche and culture. Barzini looks at his fellow Italians with a dispassionate eye and a healthy sense of irreverence, uncovering their foibles, hidden beliefs, superstitions, and great strengths as a culture.
For me, Italy is an eternal paradox. Just when you think you’ve worked it out, something happens that makes you do a double-take. This book helps you understand that paradox has been part of Italy’s identity since the very beginning.
In this consummate portrait of the Italian people, bestselling author, publisher, journalist, and politician Luigi Barzini delves deeply into the Italian national character, discovering both its great qualities and its imperfections.
Barzini is startlingly frank as he examines “the two Italies”: the one that created and nurtured such luminaries as Dante Alighieri, St. Thomas of Aquino, and Leonardo da Vinci; the other, feeble and prone to catastrophe, backward in political action if not in thought, “invaded, ravaged, sacked, and humiliated in every century.” Deeply ambivalent, Barzini approaches his task with a combination of love, hate, disillusion, and affectionate paternalism, resulting…
