Etruscan frescoes worth €15m go on display in Rome as part of Italian acquisition strategy

Italy has opened an exhibition at Rome’s National Etruscan Museum featuring 37 4th-century BC fresco panels from the François Tomb (Tomba François), discovered in 1857 at Vulci in present-day Lazio by archaeologist Alessandro François. The works went on public display for the first time since the state bought them from private owners last month for €15m, following an acquisition agreement announced in May with heirs of the Torlonia, Sforza Cesarini, and Gaetani families. Culture ministry museums director-general Massimo Osanna called the frescoes “the most complete and complex cycle of Etruscan wall paintings” surviving today, noting their inscriptions and imagery illuminate Etruscan identity and ties to early Rome. The purchase follows other recent ministry acquisitions, including a €30m Caravaggio portrait of the future Pope Urban VIII and Antonello da Messina’s Ecce Homo bought for $14.9m at a New York auction, part of a policy backed by culture minister Alessandro Giuli (in office since 2024).

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