Valentino Nizzo, executive director of Villa Giulia National Etruscan Museum, presents the Ficoroni Cista
This object exemplifies the complexity and variety of roman art at its beginnings, when Rome was culturally influenced by Etruscan, Greek and Latins elements and produced works that testify a cosmopolitan culture.
350-320 b.C.
Rome, National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia.
CONTEXT
It is a bronze recipient found during XVII century byy the antiquarian Francesco De’ Ficoroni in ancient Preneste (nowdays Palestrina).
Preneste era una fiorente città latina entrata nell’orbita cultura etrusca,
in un primo mento si oppose a Roma ma infine fu costretta a sottomettersi.Preneste was a rich Latin city that rotated around the orbits of Etruscan culture, at first it posed Rome but was soon forced to submit.
TYPE
A ciste were a type of container which was used to preserve objects for female toilette and were a typical production of that area.
SUBJECT AND STYLE
The subjects of the decoration were typically figures from Greek mythology: we can see an episode from the Argonauts, while the hilt is formed by three little statues of Dionysus and two satyrs.
THE AUTHOR
On the lid there is an inscription in archaic Latin that says:
“Novio Plauzio mi fabbricò a Roma/ Dindia Maconia (mi) donò alla figlia”.
The inscription is important because of the information that gives us: it tells us the name of the author, probably an artisan from Magna Greece (it is a typical name from Campania) that worked in Rome for a woman from Preneste, who commissioned this object as a gift for her daughter, maybe in the occasion of her wedding.
Front view
Particolare delle statue sul coperchio
Related works
(in order of pertinency)
- Le memorie ritrovate della prima e seconda Città di Labico e loro giusti siti, di Francesco Ficoroni · 1745
- Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, Tab. I, di Friedrich Ritschl · 1862
- The Praenestine Cistae Handles, di Darlene W. Murphy · 2001
- Den Ficoroniske Cista beskreven og forklaret, di Bröndsted Peter Oluf · 1847
- La cista atletica del Museo Kircheriano: invenzione ed intaglio di Novio Plauzio pittore Romano con illustrazione di G. M., di Giuseppe Marchi · 1848
- Die Ficoronische Ciste des Collegio Romano, di August Emil Braun,· 1848
- Museum Veronense, di Scipione Maffei · 1749
- Musei Kirkeriani in Romano Soc. Jesu Collegio Aerea notis illustrate, di Contuccio Contucci · 1763
- Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums, di Johann Joachim Winckelmann · 1764
- Monde Primitif, ou origine du Langage et de l’écriture, di Court de Gebelin · 1775
- La ciste Ficoroni (dans Revue de Philologiem de Littérature et d’Histoire anciennes), di Emmanuel Dupraz · 2006
- Saggio di lingua etrusca e di altre antiche d’Italia, di Luigi Lanzi · 1789
- The Ficoroni Cista ex Museo Kirkeriano Romae, di William Skelton · 1802
- Galerie Mythologique: recueil de monuments pour servir à l’étude de la mythologie, de l’histoire e de l’art, de l’antiquité figurée, et du langage allégorique des ancien, di Aubin-Loius Millin · 1811
- Notizie della scultura degli antichi e dei vari suoi stili, di Luigi Lanzi · 1824
- Opere di J. J. Winckelmann · 1830
- Geschichte der Malerei, di Alfred Woltmann e Karl Woermann · 1879
- History of Rome and of the roman People, di Victor Duruy · 1884
- A greek Dressing-Case, di Jane E. Harrison · 1884
- Manuel d’Archéologie Etrusque et Romaine, Jules Martha · 1884
- History of Painting, di Alfred Woltmann e Karl Woermann,· 1894
- Epigrafia latina, di Serafino Ricci · 1898
- Roman Cities in Italy and Dalmatia, di Arthur Lincoln Frothingham · 1910
- Archaeologische Hermeneutik, di Carl Robert · 1919
- Etruskische Spiegel, di Eduard Gerhard · 1843
- Bilder-Atlas zur Weltgeschichte, di Ludwig Weisser · 1848
- Ficoronische Ciste, di Anonimo · 1850 c.
- Die Ficoronische Cista, eine archäologische Abhandlung, di Otto Jahn · 1852
- Priscae latinitatis monumenta epigraphica, di Friedrich Ritschl · 1862
- Art and Archaeology of ancient Greece, Rome and Persia · 1868
- Denkmäler der Kunst, di Ernst Guhl e Joseph Caspar, · 1870
- Ellade e Roma, di Jacopo Di Falke · 1882
- A greek Dressing-Case, di Jane E. Harrison · 1884
- Denkmäler etruskischer kultur · 1884
- Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines, Daremberg-Saglio · 1887
- Wiener Vorlegeblätter für Archaeologische Übungen, di Otto Benndorf · 1890
- Etruskische Kunst, Brockhaus’ Konversations-Lekicon · 1894
- Nouveau Larousse Illustré · 1898
- Tiare en or offerte par la ville d’Olbia au roi saitapharnés, di Max Collignon · 1899
- Roman Art, di Franz Wickhoff · 1900
- Manuale di Storia dell’Arte, di Antonio Springer · 1904
- A Companion to latin Studies, di John Edwin Sandys · 1910
- The Art of the Romans, di Henry Beauchamp Walters · 1911
- Die Praenestinischen Spiegel, di Georg Matthies · 1912
- Malerei und Zeichnung der Griechen, di Ernst Pfuhl · 1923