Stefano Bruni (ed.), Etruria e Italia preromana: studi in onore di Giovannangelo Camporeale (2 vols.). Studia erudita 4.   Pisa/Roma:  Fabrizio Serra Editore, 2009.  Pp. xxxiii, 905.  ISBN 9788862271400.  €495.00 (pb).  

[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review.]

This festschrift, running at over 900 pages and spanning two volumes, is an impressive tribute to one of the greats of Etruscology. It suffers from many of the standard failings of festschrifts but nevertheless contains a rich assortment of miscellanea, virtually every one of which will individually be of value to some specialist or other. The articles almost entirely concern conventional Etruscan topics, and indeed the title of the book is somewhat misleading, as there are no more than a handful of contributions on non-Etruscan subjects, either predating the Etruscan period or concerning another part of Italy.

As an Italian publication most of the chapters are in that language, with a smattering in English, German, and French. Regardless of the language, many of the scholars' citations demonstrate familiarity with the literature from other countries. While the contributor list includes most of the big names in Etruscology from around the world, as well as some emergent Italian scholars, I do not see any junior non-Italian scholars represented.

Most of the chapters are just a few pages in length and treat a narrow subject such as a particular unpublished object in a collection. As there are 109 chapters, I will not attempt to summarize or even mention each one, but will simply discuss the broad categories of subjects into which they seem to me to group themselves naturally. As with many festschrifts, the book is organized alphabetically by author, which makes for choppy reading, as one skips back and forth across time and place. Nor is the book indexed, making it even more difficult for the reader to select according to his or her interests. Nevertheless, given the large numbers of chapters, after reading through them a certain cohesion, or commonality of purpose, is evident. The chapters mirror the wide ranging scholarly interests of Camporeale himself, covering linguistic and textual studies, some archaeological reports, and many studies of art objects. The geographic predominance of North Etruria also reflects Camporeale's research.

There are a dozen linguistic and textual studies, which this reviewer is not equipped to evaluate. Archaeological studies, consisting of brief reports of fieldwork or analyses of particular artifacts or sites, constitute 20% of the two volumes. Of those, the excavation reports tend to be summaries of already published work, but given the difficulties of obtaining some Italian publications abroad these reiterations may be welcome. Thus the chapter by Emanuela Paribeni on the Late Archaic farmstead at Pian d'Alma was of especial interest despite the fact that the author has published a report already. Not all the archaeological chapters are reworkings of earlier publications: there is a catalogue and examination of the previously unpublished bronze weapons from Tomb A at Verucchio by Giovanna Bermond Montanari that is an important contribution. Likewise Fulvia Lo Schiavo's presentation of a ninth century BCE bronze hoard from Sardinia (one of the rare non-Etruscan centered chapters in the volume) is valuable for being the first detailed publication of that assemblage.

The bulk of the publication, some 60 or so chapters, are art historical, often constituting the publication of a previously unpublished museum piece. The emphasis is on ceramics and on sculpture in stone, terracotta, or bronze, with only two chapters taking tomb paintings as their subject. These studies are traditional in scholarship and generally follow a formula of close description of the object and discussion of comparanda. Some of these, such as Richard de Puma's identification of a fake bucchero kantharos in the Met, are succinct and narrowly framed but beautifully written contributions. Another fine chapter is Mario Iozzo's discussion of a bracelet from the National Archaeological Museum in Chiusi, which he identifies as a musical instrument. Two chapters, Cristina Cagianelli's and Marina Martelli's, involve even more detective work as they examine lost objects known now only from centuries-old sketches. This brings us to a further small grouping of chapters that fall into the category of reception studies and the history of collecting. Eight chapters focus exclusively on this, and many others make reference to the subsequent history of the objects under study. Among these, the chapter by Francoise Gaultier on the 19th c CE reworking of the scarab necklace from the Campana Collection is fascinating.

Besides these groupings there are a handful of broad interpretative chapters on Etruria in which the authors tackle historical questions such as the political organization of Archaic Cerveteri (Luciana Aigner Foresti) using combinations of textual and archaeological evidence. These are less successful here than the compact, narrowly focused chapters, because there is not enough space to develop broad arguments, and so to the reader's annoyance the authors are obliged to refer frequently to their own earlier work to fill in the gaps. An exception is Giovanni Colonna's piece on the Etruscan god Tec Sans, which combines epigraphic and archaeological evidence in a tight and effective chapter of greater length than most, one of the best in the book.

One disappointment is that I noted no cross-referencing between chapters at all. For example Adriano Maggiano and Anna Maria Moretti Sgubini both examine Archaic stone sculpture from Chiusi, and cite each other's earlier work, without engaging with each other here despite conflicting interpretations. Similarly, many of the authors discuss Dionysiac imagery on individual objects or classes of objects from Etruria, from bronze mirrors to red figure vases to tomb paintings, without ever alluding to each other's examples. Some awareness of the other contributions would have brought to light the scale of the popularity of this imagery. This in turn could have permitted the scholars to contextualize their individual observations within this broader phenomenon, potentially changing the significance of their individual pieces.

The book itself is handsomely typeset on heavyweight cream colored paper, with a stylishly ascetic brown paper cover, although the binding promptly broke on each volume while I was reading it. The images are black and white, and of satisfactory if unspectacular quality, but they are often of hard-to-find objects so are very appreciated. The editing is efficient if laissez faire; the typos are not egregious but the inconsistent formatting is somewhat distracting: sometimes authors chose to include bibliographies, others simply put their full citations in the footnotes; sometimes the figures have captions, other times not.

To conclude, the chapters in this book are overall of a high standard, but this large collection will be of interest only to Etruscan scholars, and is not recommended for scholars of other parts or periods of pre-Roman Italy. This very expensive book will be accessed through libraries primarily and few scholars will buy it for personal collections. Nonetheless the book warrants examination by anyone interested in Etruscan studies. First, the reader may stumble across a chapter on an object or topic of individual relevance. Secondly and perhaps more importantly, it is worth taking a look because in its entirety the book constitutes a successful and large scale exercise in disciplinary community building and affirmation. From the contributors and their choice of topics, one gets a snapshot of the field of Etruscology in Italy at this moment. The affectionate and grateful homages to Camporeale at the start of many of the chapters highlight the impact he has had on a generation of scholars, and the commonality of purpose that I alluded to earlier may be attributed in part to his considerable influence.

Table of Contents

Tabula gratulatoria. Curriculum di Giovannangelo Camporeale. Pubblicazioni di Giovannangelo Camporeale.

Volume I:

Volume II: