Curated by Anna Mazzanti and Giulio Paolucci, the exhibition, organized by the Municipality of San Gimignano, Civic Museums, Opera Laboratori and Fondzione Musei Senesi, within the calendar desired by the Tuscany Region “Progetto Etruschi 85/25”, is divided into thematic sections that guide visitors on a journey through the planning, ideas, installations and works of art and archaeology exhibited in the eight exhibitions held in 1985 throughout Tuscany. A thematic insight goes even further back in time, documenting with unpublished materials the fruitful relationship between d’Annunzio and the ancient world, in the years of the first great Etruscan conference that saw San Gimignano among its interests. Prestigious loans from the Archaeological Museum of Florence, the Guarnacci Museum of Volterra and the National Museum of Villa Giulia, together with works by contemporary artists of the calibre of Michelangelo Pistoletto, Fausto Melotti and Arnaldo Pomodoro – already protagonists of the 1985 exhibitions – provide a portrait of a rich and vital dialogue between ancient Etruria and the contemporary.

There was indeed a lot of courage in interpreting Etruscan archaeology in 1985. The exhibition opportunities, indeed, were a propellant for the creation of a new Etruscan echo. And today? If the exhibition retraces the choices made then, the young artist Gabriele Ermini, born in 1996, was called to give his own view on the ancient civilization. The Santa Chiara Complex also hosts the work “Untitled (La corsa sul crinale)”, exhibited by the Florentine artist as part of VIS-À-VIS visual arts, a project by the Fondazione Musei Senesi that compares ancient and modern, financed by the Tuscany Region with the “Toscana in Contemporanea” call for proposals.

The exhibition builds a bridge between the present and the past that, through the reinterpretation of the great events of 1985, is forcefully projected towards the future.

The first room introduces the historical and cultural context that led to the birth of the “Etruscan Project”. The protagonists of this season are presented through documents, catalogues, guides, invitations and promotional materials of the time. The guiding image designed by Fernando Farulli, inspired by an Etruscan bronze, and the most iconic elements of that campaign stand out: from the commemorative 500 Lire coin to the stamps dedicated to the Etruscans issued by the State Mint. The eight exhibitions held in 1985 are remembered by the impressive visual communication campaign developed at the time by the pioneering advertising agency AdMarco. Alongside, there is space for the story of merchandising: stickers, t-shirts, diaries and gadgets that inaugurated a new way of establishing a more contemporary and lively relationship with archaeology.

In the second room, the installations of the 1985 exhibitions are evoked, which revolutionized the way of displaying the ancient, transforming the exhibition experience into an immersive journey. Architects such as Adolfo Natalini and David Palterer designed innovative scenographic solutions, documented in the exhibition by plans, axonometric projections, sketches and unpublished archive photographs. The room closes with a refined collection of ceramics signed by the Richard Ginori factory, created for 1985: plates, jugs and small animals inspired by precious Etruscan bronzes, summoned to the exhibition: emblem of a design that looks to the ancient.

The third room tells the story of the relationship between Etruscan art and contemporary art, reconstructing the choices made in 1985 and proposing new reinterpretations. The section presents works by great artists involved in the original project, such as Michelangelo Pistoletto with L’Etrusco, while the performance Amare Chimere by Mario Schifano, performed on 16 May 1985 in front of thousands of people in Piazza della Santissima Annunziata in Florence, is documented here by the shots of Marcello Gianvenuti and the unpublished video by Giacomo Verde. There is no shortage of works by Fausto Melotti and Arnaldo Pomodoro, which stage an imaginative dialogue with the finds exhibited in parallel, coming from the deposits of Villa Giulia (and, in a philological work, already present in the exhibition of forty years ago). The room also pays homage to the semiologist Omar Calabrese, author of the “Etrusco immaginario” section within the 1985 exhibition “Fortuna degli Etruschi”, where high art and pop culture were mixed: a colourful and unhierarchical section, at the time at the centre of much controversy and today documented by the shots of Giampaolo di Cocco.

A small section of the exhibition preserves, as in a treasure chest of elegance and creativity, very precious artefacts that evoke the creativity stimulated in the 1980s by the Etruscan exhibition. Granulated gold jewellery by Unoaerre and the Etruscan line by Alunno-Stendardi reinterpret the motifs of Etruscan goldsmithing in a modern key. Next to them, terracotta perfume bottles evoke ancient rituals, while fashion is represented by Cinzia Ruggeri, with a postmodern dress inspired by the Etruscan world, used for the cover of “Aristocratica”, a 1984 success by Matia Bazar, and by the sophisticated designs of Maddalena Sisto.

The exhibition also analyses the very strong media impact of the Etruscan Project which, at the time, conquered covers and columns in magazines such as Domus, Casa Vogue, FMR, Archeo, Panorama and above all Archeologia Viva, to which an entire section is dedicated. Editorial materials, newspapers (such as La Nazione) and videos produced by RAI and Istituto LUCE, tell the story of the widespread diffusion of the project, which went beyond the confines of museums.

A final focus is dedicated to the birth, in those years, of the Etruscan museum network in Tuscany: a cultural ecosystem that still represents an Italian excellence today.

Two rooms, curated by Valerio Bartoloni, take a fascinating leap back in time. The first explores the link between Etruscan antiquity and Gabriele d’Annunzio, focusing on the inspiration that the writer drew from the Etruscan landscape and myth during the writing of Forse che sì, forse che no. The second instead retraces the stages of the National Etruscan Convention of 1926, held in Florence with a significant stop between Volterra and San Gimignano: a key moment for the twentieth-century rediscovery of Etruscan civilization, which anticipates and prepares the turning point of 1985, evoked and reinterpreted in the context of 2025.

“Anima Etrusca / Etruscan Soul”, in short, intertwines past and present through archaeology, contemporary art, design and communication. A unique opportunity to rediscover, forty years after the original project, the modern and highly topical fortune of the Etruscans.