Modern Etruscans

Modern Etruscans is a subproject in the research programme Literary Knowledge (1890-1950): Modernisms and the Sciences in Europe. The project explores the ways in which an increasingly specialized knowledge of Etruscan culture affected not only Italian but also other Western European literatures in the modernist period. Especially after the political unification of Italy, in 1861, a new interest in Ancient Rome and other local italic cultures spread on the Italian peninsula, leading, among others, to new systematic archeological excavations in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. The discovery of several Tuscan necropolises brought back to light a considerable number of Etruscan ruins and art works. This not only encouraged the development of the newly professionalised archeological branch of etruscology; the mysterious Etruscans, and the limited knowledge about them, also sparked the imagination of European writers of the widest variety working in various genres and registers. Modern Etruscans investigates how Western European literatures selected, mediated, remodelled and propagated archeological knowledge to yield new or alternative understandings, imaginations and literary experiences of Etruscan culture.