Tarquinia and the Etruscan Necropolis of Monterozzi

The Etruscan Necropolis of Monterozzi is located over an upland east of Tarquinia (Viterbo) and counts with approximately 6,000 tombs, most of them spaces digged into the rock and surmounted by tumulus, the oldest of them dating back to the seventh century BC.

Among these, approximately 200 contain a series of frescoes representing the largest pictorial Etruscan art group arrived to our days and, at the same time, the largest proof of the whole Ancient paintings before Roman Imperial Age. This extraordinary series of depicted tombs represents the most prestigious group of the necropolis, absolutely the most important of the Mediterranean, so much that it has been defined by scholar M. Pallottino as the “first chapter of Italian Painting History”.

The usage of decorating with paintings the tombs of aristocratic families has been recorded also in other Etrurian towns, but only in Tarquinia the fenomenon has reached this wide dimension and has been so continuous over time. The burial chambers, moulded inside the spaces, present frescoed walls over a thin layer of plaster, with magical-religious scenes representing funeral feasts, dancers, aulòs players, jugglers, landscapes, all of them with a lively and harmonic movement, portrayed with intense and lively colours.

Everything was aimed to make the dead live the earthly live again and at the same time help the living forget the sorrow for their loss. After the third century BC, the decay of the Etruscan civilization seem irreversible. It's no coincidence, but a consequence, that the subsoil of Tarquinia and the paintings started to be filled with demoniacal figures, monsters and demons.

VISIT THE NECROPOLIS

Among the most interesting graves that you can visit, we underline the tomb of the Lionesses, of the Warrior, of Hunting and Fishing, of the Hunter, of Cardarelli's, of the Lotus, of the Gorgoneion, of the Jugglers, of the Leopards, of the Feasts, of the Flowers, of Maenads, of Bartoccini's, of the Ogre and the Shields and more. Some of the paintings, removed from the tombs in order to preserve them (tomb of the Chariots, of the Triclinium, of the Funeral Bed and of the Ship), are kept in the National Etruscan Museum of Tarquinia as well as other Etruscan finds.

In addition, if you book in advance you can visit the Tomb of the Panthers, of the Bulls, of the Baron, of the Wishes, and the tomb of Anina's in the neighboring necropolis of Scataglini.

This enormous heritage, not only artistic but historic, represents an ouline of the daily live of Etruscans and it was included in 2004 in the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Read the box at the botton of the article, full of useful information to plan your trip at the best.