Abstract

While most of Renaissance Italy looked to the ancient Romans for inspiration in their art, the people of Tuscany focused on the Etruscans, an Italian culture that inhabited the area of Tuscany and predated the Roman civilization. The powerful Medici family who controlled the city-state of Florence especially drew inspiration from the Etruscans to suggest their own power and right to rule. They adopted a myth fabricated by the historian Annio da Viterbo (1432-1502) which elevated the Etruscans and their land, largely located in contemporary Tuscany, to the status of ancient Rome and the Holy Land. This legend inspired Medici sponsored  artists to draw comparisons between their patrons and the glorious Etruscan past. The use of Etruscan motifs in Medici sponsored art is exemplified in Michelangelo’s statuary, particularly the images of Night and Morning in the Medici chapel at the Basilica San Lorenzo in Florence and at Lorenzo de’ Medici’s villa at Poggio a Caiano. This research further investigates the political statements of the Medici through the use of Etruscan iconography and thematic content in the art they patronized. It examines Pontormo’s lunette of Pomona and Vertumnus, an Etruscan god, at Poggio a Caiano and the figures of Night and Morning, both of which exhibit Etruscan characteristics, at the Medici Chapel. Based on these and other examples of Etruscan references in Medici art that can be observed in Tuscany, it becomes clear that this powerful Renaissance family justified their rule and Florentine expansion by reminding the people of a uniquely Tuscan history.

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