VOLUME: 6 SUMMER, 2006 More on The Capitoline Museum and Dioscorides’ the Castellani Collection Etruscan by Antonella Magagnini Curatore Archeologo, Musei Capitolini Herbs On December 23, 2005, the Capitoline Museums, after a long effort coordinated by by John Scarborough Anna Mura Sommella, Director of the Musei University of Wisconsin Capitolini, and a great financial commitment, were enriched by a new wing, focused on a In his “An Etruscan Herbal?” ( Etruscan large light-filled, glassed-in hall in the spaces News, 5 [Winter, 2006]), Kyle P. Johnson previously occupied by the Roman Garden of makes some interesting points regarding the the Palazzo dei Conservatori. The original manuscript traditions that include alternative bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius names for the plants and herbs in Dioscorides’ has finally found its worthy home in this piaz- Materia medica. 1 It was beyond the scope of za-like space, along with the large bronzes Johnson’s brief introductory note, however, donated by Sixtus IVto the Roman people in and hence it is the goal of this article, to sug- Pimpernel, from the Vienna Dioscurides 1472. From this hall one can marvel at the gest how and why these synonyms, not (Wikimedia Commons) enormous, imposing remains of the founda- included by Dioscorides in his original work, 2 5 tions of the Temple of Jupiter Capitoline enter the manuscript history, and more impor- inal work. revealed by recent archaeological excava- tantly, why these names might indicate a par- In establishing his Greek text of the tions. ticularly Etruscan herbalism. Materia medica, Max Wellmann pulled most In the galleries next to the so-called The synonym-lists were compiled separate- of the alternative nomenclatures from the “Giardino Romano” are exhibited the various ly by lexicographers, collectors of words in main text, and placed them as part of his collections. The renewed Galleria degli Horti what we would call “dictionaries” on dis- apparatus criticus with the designation RV. It and the nearby galleries feature the sculptures parate subjects, including the vocabularies of is among these “alternative names” that one that once adorned the luxurious Imperial resi- medicine and related disciplines.3 As scribes finds the Etruscan terms for some plants and dences and their parks and gardens; these copied and re-copied the Materia medica, herbs. These are, indeed, remnants of what came to light in the course of excavations of sometimes rearranging Dioscorides’ original could be called an “Etruscan herbal:” bits sur- the second half of the 19th c. in the areas of format (called by Riddle a “drug affinity sys- viving from lexicographers’ hungry search for the Quirinal, Viminal, and Esquiline hills. The tem”), 4 those scribes attached portions of the arcane words, a literary genre that flourished 6 Castellani Collection, given to the Capitoline separate synonym-lists to the text itself, and throughout the centuries, and which is with Museums by Augusto Castellani, a well- over the centuries the alternative names fre- us today. known goldsmith and collector in Rome in quently wandered into the body of the work Wellmann lists sixteen Etruscan words that Top: Aristonothos Crater with the blinding 7 the mid- to late 19th c., is now displayed in itself. With the advent of printed editions in appear in the RV , but significantly the three galleries adjacent to the large glassed-in of the Cyclops Polyphemos, and the the Renaissance, a number of the earliest Etruscan terms are only one of twenty-six lan- hall according to material type, a division that artist’s signature. From Cerveteri. 7th printed versions simply replicated the com- guages recorded by Pamphilus and other lexi- Castellani himself established. century B.C. Rome, Capitoline Museum. posite Greek texts (or the Latin translations of cographers. Etruscan –– by comparison with As is well known, Augusto Castellani put those manuscripts) so that medical students the “Roman,” “words of the [Egyptian] together over the course of several decades a Bottom: Aristonothos Crater with a battle and professors of pharmacology in the seers,” “Egyptian,” “Gallic,” “Dacian,” and between a war ship and a merchant ship. 8 rich collection of objects covering a wide Renaissance universities often learned all of others –– is a tiny fraction of the terminolo- chronological range, from the most important 7th century B.C. Rome, Capitoline the names as if they had been part of the orig- [See “Herbs ” on page 9] archaeological sites of Etruria, Latium, and Museum. Magna Graecia. The 700 or so objects given by Castellani to the museum included a large original context; recent research carried out quantity of pottery, both imported from on related objects, however, has made it pos- Greece and locally made. In the first gallery a sible to identify some of the production cen- number of these vases are displayed in ters. chronological order, allowing the visitor to Other collections of the 19th c. include that follow the development of Greek production of the Museo Artistico Industriale, conceived from the 7th to the 4th c. B.C. through impor- by Augusto Castellani and his brother tant and well-preserved examples. The Attic Alessandro along with other important figures vases, in particular, are important for an of 19th c. culture in Rome, on the model of understanding of the history and the artistic similar museums in London and Paris. The production of the craftsmen, not only of new display includes a few noteworthy exam- Greek culture but also of contemporary cul- ples of Attic vases from the archaeological tures in the Mediterranean. section of this rich collection, which came to The second gallery exhibits locally pro- the museum in the 1950s. duced ceramics from the necropoleis of the Also on exhibit is the oinochoe from major Etruscan cities as well as from the Tragliatella (Cerveteri), given to the museum tombs of Latium and the Faliscan Territory, in 1964 in memory of Tommaso Tittoni, a e.g. Civita Castellana. Unfortunately, even Roman statesman and collector of the end of more than for the Greek vases, Castellani the 19th c. The interpretation of the figures on avoided recording their exact provenance or [See “Castellani” on page 9] Letters to the Editors To the Editors: At the time of writing my article “A Possible South Etruscan Tomb Group,” A r t i c l e s (Etruscan News 5) I was unaware of two recent articles by Jennifer Neils which dis- cussed the bird askos now in the Cleveland The Study of Etruscan books, on the prophecies of Vegoia and Tages. edge of the subject from his own experiences Museum. The first is entitled “Hercle in Also in this category are the many shadowy as an augur of state religion. Cleveland” ( Cleveland Studies in the History Religion figures who are mentioned as being consulted This first-century Roman debate is of of Art, 1998 pg. 6-21), the second appears in Excerpt from the Introduction to for advice by the Romans, the soothsaying course sophisticated and probably shows the CVA (USA 35, Cleveland Museum of Art The Religion of the Etruscans priests or haruspices , as for example, some thought patterns well beyond any pres- 2, 2000). In these works, Neils refers to the Umbricius Melior, described as “most ent in Etruscan religious teaching. Quintus stylistic connection between the Cleveland by Nancy T. de Grummond skilled,” the Early Imperial soothsayer of Cicero supports credence in divination from askos, the other pieces I mention in my article Galba. Sulla had his haruspex Postumius, and the standpoint of Stoic philosophy, and In antiquity the study of and theorizing and several other Italian Geometric vases. the famous Spurinna tried to warn Caesar Marcus Cicero, while rejecting actual faith in about Etruscan religion was already well These should be included in any bibliography about the Ides of March. There must have divination, in the end admits the importance developed, with scholarship that we may dis- for the items. been many more Romanized Etruscans of traditional rites and ceremonies solely for tribute into three main categories: canonical involved in these pursuits (there are a few political aims. He has great contempt for most texts, philosophical treatises, and Angela Murock Hussein more such figures whose names alone have divinatory practices and heaps scorn upon, for historical/antiquarian writings. come down to us), for we know that as a gen- example, the important Etruscan revelation The Canonical Texts eral principle, the Romans thought the myth of the prophetic child Tages. What is There were studies of the many different Etruscan teachings to be so important that most important in the treatise for our purpos- Etruscan texts having to do with the Etrusca they had a practice of sending their sons to es is the abundant evidence about the princi- disciplina , that body of original Etruscan reli- Etruria to study this ancient lore. pal Etruscan methods of divining, by reading gious literature describing Philosophical Texts of entrails and by interpretation of lightning. the cosmos and the The foregoing individuals we have men- When we can sort these out from Roman Underworld, as well as tioned may be recognized as real practitioners interpolation, we have some of the most prescribing various rituals of Etruscan or Etruscan-style religion, and as meaningful reports from antiquity on and ways to interpret and act such they had their own bias. Our second Etruscan practices. upon messages from the gods. The division is related, but it manifests a different The treatise of Seneca, Quaestiones natu- names of the texts that have survived approach: intellectuals with a concern for phi- rales , written shortly before his death in 65 include the Libri rituales , Libri fatales , losophy. There is no more significant surviv- CE, also promotes philosophy but is fascinat- Libri de fulguratura (“on lightning”) and ing text for the study of Etruscan religious ing for its sympathetic presentation of the Libri Acheruntici (concerning Acheron, i.e., practice than the treatise on divination by point of view of Etruscan priests.