Guelphs, Ghibellines and Etruscans: Archaeological Discoveries and Civic Identity in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Tuscany

Abstract

This paper examines the rediscovery of the ancient Etruscans, in central Italy, during the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries AD. Knowledge about the Etruscans from this earlier period was overshadowed by the interest in Etruscan antiquities promoted by Pope Leo X (1513–1521) and Cosimo I de Medici (1519–1574) during the late Renaissance. I argue that the sixteenth century appropriation of the Etruscan past would not have been possible without the discoveries of earlier generations of Tuscans, and, more particularly, without a reversal in attitudes towards the Etruscan past that began during the late thirteenth century. Prior to this, the Etruscans were perceived negatively, as allied to darkness and paganism. In this paper, I argue that this change in the perception of the Etruscans was closely allied to the particular political situation of the city-state of Florence, and that the origins of Etruscan archaeology can be elucidated in the centre of the maelstrom of war, famine and plague that characterised the fourteenth century in central Italy.