Miti greci per principi dauni

The exhibition at the National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia celebrates the return to Italy of 25 archaeological artifacts hitherto held in the classical antiquities collections of Berlin’s Altes Museum and recovered through a successful cultural diplomacy operation.

As a result of a cooperation agreement between the Italian and German Ministries of Culture, the Foundation for the Cultural Heritage of Prussia (SPK) and the Altes Museum in Berlin, which was also signed thanks to the important work carried out by the Carabinieri of the Comando Tutela del Patrimonio Culturale, an important group of vases has in fact finally returned to Italy. The vases mostly come from northern Apulia, an area inhabited by the ancient tribe of the Daunians who, between the 9th and 4th centuries B.C., gave birth to one of the most interesting pre-Roman cultures in Italy.

Decorated with mythological scenes, the vases were luxury objects that were often part of grave goods, that is, they were produced to be laid in tombs as a symbol of the wealth and high social rank of the deceased. Some of the extraordinary large and medium-sized red-figure vases can be attributed by stylistic features to well-known and prolific potters active in the second half of the 4th century B.C., such as the Darius Painter and the Otherworld Painter. Also belonging to the group of recovered finds are two Attic vases, that is, produced in the Athens region, a Lucanian red-figure crater and a fragment of a fresco from a villa in Boscoreale, declared to be of dubious provenance.

Thanks to an immersive and accessible layout, the works tell their story and those of the gods and heroes depicted in them. By virtue of their provenance, at the end of the exhibition the materials will then return to Apulia and will be permanently assigned to the establishing Museum of Foggia at Palazzo Filiasi.