In the first century of the Common Era, the Roman Emperor Claudius, who ruled from 41 to 54 AD, was a passionate scholar of the Etruscans. He published, in the Greek language, a monumental oeuvre on the Etruscans, twenty books, entitled Tyrrhenikà.

Unfortunately, this text has not survived time; it is a terrible loss since on these indigenous people, which inhabited in ancient times a vast area of central Italy (Tuscany, the majority of Umbria and northern Lazio) and spoke a non-Indo-European language, up to now only deciphered but not decoded, Greek and Roman authors, such as Herodotus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Livy, and others, gave much information but left no systematic treatises.

Nonetheless, contemporary Etruscology has made great strides. The 20th century saw the fundamental work by Massimo Pallottino, Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, Guglielmo Maetzke and many others.

In Florence, Professor Giovannangelo Camporeale and Professor Luigi Donati held the Etruscology chair for a long time. 

A year ago, Donati drew public attention to the princely Etruscan tomb believed to be located beneath the English Cemetery in Florence, now situated in Piazza Donatello.

The ancient road connecting the Etruscan city of Fiesole to the right bank of the Arno River ran through the Borgo Pinti area, which begins right across from the English Cemetery. According to Donati, a vast Etruscan necropolis stood in the area.

An extraordinary Etruscan funerary terracotta urn (a cinerary), of the mid-seventh century B.C., found in Montescudaio (in Val di Cecina, Maremma Pisana), depicts on the lid a plastic reproduction of a banqueting man. The man, evidently dead, sits before a richly set table and next to him is a standing servile figure who mixes wine in a grand ‘dinos’, placed next to him. Today, the work is at the Archaeological Museum of Villa Guerrazzi in Cecina. It is a fundamental testimony to comprehend that Etruscans, since ancient times, used to eat sitting at the table, and that the use of the ‘kline’, the typical sofa used during banquets, followed later on after the influx of Greek colonies, mainly those of Magna Graecia and Sicily.

Catullus and Virgil, two great Latin poets, defined the Etruscans, or the Tyrrhenians, respectively: oboesus Etruscus and pinguis Tyrrhenus (Carm. 37, 2 and Georg. II, 139). Clearly, the Romans thought that the Etruscans ate lavishly. In fact, Athenaeus of Naucratis, citing the Greek philosopher Posidonius (1st century B.C.), informs us that the Etruscans set up tables twice a day with colourful rugs, vases and silver cups and a large number of servants involved who brought splendid and valuable clothes (Deipnosofisti, IV, 153c).

Ancient sculpture confirms the descriptions of the two poets: The Museo Archeologico of Florence houses the cover of an Etruscan sarcophagus in alabaster, namely the sarcophagus of the obese (from Chiusi, first half of the 3rd century B.C.). The rich, dead man is lying on a kline. His belly is fat, as are his breasts and upper limbs.

We understand that obesity was a status symbol of the wealthy society to which this man belonged, and that the flashy ring on his left finger emphasised the prosperity of the man.

They represented many other fat Etruscans on sarcophaguses coming from Orvieto and Viterbo. Quite beautiful is the sarcophagus of the obese, kept at the Archaeological Museum of Tarquinia.

However, the commoners’ table was decidedly less variegated and poorer than the aristocratic one. Spelt and legumes were the most used foods. An everyday dish was puls, that is, polenta made from spelt, which they seasoned with meat or vegetable sauces.

Also spelt soup, as Juvenal claimed, was one of the typical foods of the Etruscan cuisine (Satire, XI, 108). 

They made bread from four soft wheat and cereal flour. We must note that the fields of the Tyrrhenians produced cereal in such quantities that when there was a famine in Rome, the Romans purchased the Etruscan flour. (Livy, II, 34).

Meat consumption, except in rare cases, was limited to pork and sheep meat. It may be a coincidence, but stewed mutton is a characteristic dish from Campi Bisenzio (near Florence), which has also become part of the culinary tradition of Prato. In ancient times, the Etruscans of the area ate mutton. It’s worth remembering that not far from the centre of Prato stood the recently rediscovered Etruscan settlement of Gonfienti.

And the Etruscans were the creators of the extraordinary culinary speciality: the prosciutto!

Cinerario di Montescudaio