The National Etruscan Museum is a smaller museum in Rome, but its historical and artistic value has never been challenged. The museum was set up in 1889, after the unification of the Kingdom of Italy, in a former papal palace, Villa Giulia, an edifice built centuries earlier for the use of the popes, and confiscated by the authorities in the 1870s, when Italy took another trajectory as a state entity. The villa is located in the vicinity of yet another famed historical edifice, namely, Villa Borghese (which is home to the Borghese Gallery) and of the National Gallery of Modern Art.

The Etruscans, a people even more ancient than the Romans themselves, were famed for the artistry poured in the masterpieces and artifacts they created in time. In this respect, the museum dedicated to their culture gathers together a miscellaneous collection of bronze sculptures, sarcophagi, jewelry and terra-cotta vases, of which the most eye-catching highlights refer to the so-called Sarcofago degli Sposi (Sarcophagus of the Spouses), Apollo of Veii, Dea con Bambino (Goddess with a Baby), Hercules with a Stag, the Etruscan-Phoenician Pyrgi Tablets, Kreugas eating the brain of his enemy (a replica of the original freeze), and to the 4th century Cista Ficoroni (a bronze urn with paw-shaped feet), just to list a few examples.

Name:
National Etruscan Museum (Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia)
Address:
9, Piazzale di Villa Giulia, 00196, Rome, Italy
Telephone:
0039 06 3226571
Fax:
0039 06 320010
Email:
[email protected]
Website:
villagiulia.beniculturali.it
Opening hours:
Tuesday to Sunday: 8:30am to 7:30pm