Crafting Encounters in the Art of Early Italy
edited by Alexander Ekserdjian
PDF (Published)
(December 2026)
ISBN: 9781931909501
Price: $25.99
Temples decorated with brightly colored terracotta sculpture and tombs frescoed with carefully chosen imagery were sites of heightened encounter in early Italy. These places were points of connection between the mortal realm and the worlds of the gods and of the dead. Artworks that adorned sacred buildings and funerary spaces amplified such confrontations, structuring ancient emotional responses. This volume reconstructs the crafting of encounters and the ways that such encounters were experienced, seeking to glimpse howthe inhabitants of early Italy saw the images that filled their world. The contributors are Allia Benner, Fabio Colivicchi, Sophie Crawford-Brown, Nancy deGrummond, Alexander Ekserdjian, Maurizio Forte, Fay Glinister, Daniele Maras, Jacqueline Ortoleva, Corinna Riva, P. Gregory Warden, and Cristiana Zaccagnino.
Acknowledgments Foreword: The State of the Field of Terracotta Architectural Decoration in Central Italy (Corinna Riva) Introduction: Contextual Encounters with Ancient Art (Alexander Ekserdjian) Section 1. Crafting Encounters On the Identity of Etruscan Artists and Craftsmen (Nancy de Grummond) Animal Friezes in Etruscan Late-Archaic Terracottas and Painting: Reviving an Orientalizing Motif (Daniele Maras) Arnza and His Bird: The Swallow of the Francois Tomb (Cristiana Zaccagnino) Master of the Roof: Recontextualizing the Herakles and Athena Acroteria from Archaic Central Italy (Allia Benner) Mixing and Matching on Italic Temple Roofs (Sophie Crawford-Brown) Section 2. Experiencing Encounters Ways of Seeing: On Temples and Their Terracottas in Republican Rome (Fay Glinister) Encounters in the Sanctuary: Experiencing Pedimental Sculpture in the Second Century B.C.E. (Alexander Ekserdjian) Space, Place, and Performance: The Cultural Poetics of Italic Temple Decoration
Appendix: Viewshed and Visual Perception of the Etruscan Pediment (P. Gregory Warden, with an appendix by Maurizio Forte) Disposing of Sacred Images: The End of the Life of Architectural Terracottas (Fabio Colivicchi) Encountering the Dead: Sonic and Visual Experience inside the Fourth Century B.C.E. Tomba Golini I, Orvieto, Italy (Jacqueline Ortoleva) List of Contributors
- Edited by Alexander Ekserdjian
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