Gregorian Etruscan Museum

Start with a material that catches your eye. Bronze, clay and jewellery lead into different parts of the Gregorian Etruscan Museum. Many objects were found in the cities and tombs of ancient Etruria, in areas that later belonged to the Papal State. Pope Gregory XVI opened the museum in 1837 as those excavations were adding to the collections. The room names give you useful choices. Room II is devoted to the Regolini-Galassi Tomb. Room III gathers bronzes, while Rooms VII and VIII focus on Etruscan and Roman jewellery. Other sections follow funerary urns, terracotta decoration and pottery. A painted Greek vase found in an Etruscan tomb connects more than one culture. Its place of discovery and its place of manufacture answer different questions. The collection also follows the changing relationship between Etruria and Rome, with a Roman antiquities section extending into the later empire. Around these objects, parts of a sixteenth-century papal palace retain their own painted decoration. The building has a history quite separate from the ancient things it now holds.