Museum of the Etruscan Academy
The
Museum of the Etruscan Academy is housed at the
noble floor of the historic Palazzo Casali, erected
in the 13th century, later turned to official
residence of the family that ruled the signoria of
Cortona (1325-1409) and, then in 1411, adapted to be
the seat of Florentine captains and commissaries. The
museum was created by the initiative of three culturated Cortonese
brothers, Marcello, Ridolfino and Filippo Venuti,
founders of the Etruscan Academy, who gathered in
this seat a rich archaeological collection and an
important library, both gifts of their uncle Onofrio
Baldelli, for the cultural promotion of the Etruscan
Academy.
In the 18th century
the original unit was enriched with other
archaeological pieces donated by the members of the
Academy and owing to the donations of whole collections,
as the Egyptian art collection by Mgr. Guido Corbelli (late
19th century), the painting and furniture collection coming
from the Tommasi Baldelli House (1933) and the one
gathering the important group of paintings by Gino
Severini (1883-1966) - donated to his native city by
the artist himself - a main representative of the
Futurist movement. The Museum exibits a very rich
collection of archaeological material and artistic
items dating back from the 14th to the 19th century in a hetereogenic
manner that is revealed in the arrangement of the
items, as there are not spatial divisions between the
diverse genres of the exibited material. The variety
of the pieces (archaeological finds and important
Etruscan, Greek, Roman and Egyptian works of art,
besides the paintings, sculptures, mosaic works, fittings,
minor arts and coins, collections of medals and engraved gems)
is a peculiar and distinguishing character of this
museum compared to the other ones in the province of
Arezzo: it reflects the history of the collections,
intimately bound to the life of the Academy and to
the lively world of the erudite and cultural
interests of the 18th-century Tuscany.
Among the most important archaeological objects is
the Etruscan Chandelier found in 1840 in the
neighbourhood of Cortona, a specimen of the finest
bronze production of mid-Northern Etruria in the
second half of the 4th century, decorated according to
a very complex iconography with silenes, harpies and animals
figures and propably intended for a sacred building of great
importance. Particularly rich is the section including
the Etruscan, Italic and Roman bronzes found in the
Cortonese area and the one including Etruscan, Greek
and Italic ceramic objects, among which the Attic
anphora of a tyrrhenian type with the Struggle of
Ercules against the lion Nemeo (mid.6th century B.C.) and
the grey bucchero anphora, with decorations made with cylindric
mould, coming from the Chiusi area (6th century B.C.).
Noteworthy is also the series of cinerary urns and
the collection of instrumenta - i.e. domestic use
objects, of Etruscan and Roman ages, gathered by the
Venutis. Among the paintings, mostly by the Tuscan school
from the 13th to the 19th century of considerable interest are
the works by Bicci di Lorenzo, by the school of Luca
Signorelli, by Andrea Commodi, by Cristofano Allori,
by Pietro da Cortona, besides a sketch by Giovan
Battista Piazzetta preparative for the painting of
the church of S.Filippo accomplished for the
Cortonese family of the Tommasis (1739-44). The collections
of the museum were recently enriched by an extraordinary funerary
kit found in the grave of Melone II del Sodo,
containing precious golden jewels, among which a
fibula and valuable ceramics and bronze instruments
set up in a topographic section at the second floor.
HAVING
BEEN HERE IN THIS WONDERFUL LITTLE TOWN NESTELED IN THE HILLS FULL OF
ERTUSCAN HISTORY IF YOU ARE EVEN IN THE AREA VISIT IT
A LITTLE TOUR OF CORTONA
