(ANSA) – ROME, AUG 20 – The Etruscan site of Vetulonia in southern Tuscany is showcasing a “dialogue” between its pre-Roman artifacts and the works of modernists like Futurist master Gino Severini and Metaphysical great Giorgio de Chirico, exhibit organisers said Wednesday.
Vases ranging from the Villanovan to the Hellenistic period, from the Archaic to the Classical period, Attic black-figure and red-figure pottery, hydriai, and kraters with mythological and theatrical scenes, embossed bronze artifacts, and graffiti are flanked by works by modern artists who “developed their own personal vision of the classical spirit,” such as Severini’s “Two-Fronted Janus” or de Chirico’s “Archeologi,” they said.
The “Isidoro Falchi” Civic Archaeological Museum of the small town near Grosseto is hosting its annual exhibition-event on the Etruscans and their relationships with other cultures.
This year’s exhibition, inaugurated after mid-August and running until April 9th, features a selection from the Roberto Bilotti Ruggi d’Aragona collections.
Curated by Simona Rafanelli, the museum’s scientific director, and Vincent Jolivet of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris, the unusual exhibition at the Muvet, “A Patron and His Treasures,” raises the curtain on a collection as multifaceted as the man who assembled it: a lover of art and ancient ceramics, a patron and cultural promoter, and heir to the Ruggi d’Aragona archaeological collection.
Its collection includes vases from the Villanovan to the Hellenistic period, from Geometric and Orientalizing to Corinthian, from the Archaic to the Classical period, with Attic black-figure pottery attributed to Antimenes, Lysippides, and Leagros; red-figure pottery by the Syracuse and Berlin painter; Magna Graecia; hydriai and kraters with mythological and theatrical scenes; Paestum vases by the vase painters Assteas and Python; Campanian, Lucanian, Apulian, and Sicilian; Italic ex-voto sculptures; and embossed and incised bronze artifacts.
Watching over them, it seems, are de Chirico’s “Archeologi,” two seated, embracing mannequins whose bodies are constructed from classical architectural ruins, evidence of a great past, from the memories of the Mediterranean.
A gaze, on the past and the future, like that of Severini’s “Two-Fronted Janus” on display, inspired by the Etruscan Culsans of Cortona.
On the other hand, “bringing art where it isn’t there” and putting his expertise to public service is a life mission for Roberto Bilotti Ruggi d’Aragona: the “museumization” of the works he has collected is aimed precisely at public enjoyment, and the collector actively participates in the development of existing museums and promotes the formation of new cultural institutions.
Bilotti’s experimental projects, in short, are aimed at interacting with the community, and in this spirit he helped create, and now curates, the “Bilotti Museum at Villa Borghese”; the Museum of Contemporary Art and Ceramics in Rende; the “MAB”, the Open-Air Urban Sculpture Museum in Cosenza; the Boccioni Room and the 20th-Century Section at the Galleria Nazionale.
Even his restored Baroque palaces in Palermo have become art centres in their own right. (ANSA).
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Last modified: August 20, 2025