Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Musuems

For the year 2009, the Etruscan Italic Department presents several restoration projects from the Regolini Galassi Tomb, found in 1836 during archaeological excavations in Cerveteri. The Regolini Galassi represents one of the richest burial sites in Etruria and in the whole Eastern Mediterranean region. This tomb is the burial site of a king from the ancient Etruscan city of Caere, and holds a rich variety of gold, silver and bronze
artefacts related to complex ceremonial and symbolic rituals.
During this period, christened as orientalizing, many cultural and artistic elements of different origins coexisted in Etruria and in the entire Mediterranean region. Particularly significant are a series of eleven bronze ribbed paterae, originally placed along the cell walls of the tomb. These ceremonial vases of oriental origin were used in the entombment rituals of the royal class. The presence of ribbed paterae in the tombs of Etruscan aristocratic figures has various symbolic meanings such as the indication of social ranking or the realization of regal banquets in honor of the dead and their ancestors.

In the same tomb, archaeologists also found both phiale and a bronze basin. The phiale is an antique ceremonial vase used in the Ancient Orient and Mediterranean during the Bronze Age. In fact, it was manufactured in the north part of Syria, Assyria, in Fenice and in Cyprus before reaching Italy and the
Iberian Peninsula during the VII century B.C. The bronze basin, of simple biconical appearance and receding borders, is part of the rich collection of bronze vases that accompanied the most antique burial location of the Regolini Galassi Tomb. This fascinating variety of grave-goods is tied to the ceremonial banquet adopted by Etruscan princes regal courts, closely associated to the model of an ideal heroic Greek legacy, handed down through Homers narratives and composed during the same years in which this tomb was dated, while being centered on past endeavors.