A painted city of the dead
On the ridge facing ancient Tarquinia lies the Monterozzi necropolis: about 6,000 graves cut into the rock, mostly chamber tombs that were once covered by mounds. Some 200 of them are painted. Painting appears there in the seventh century BCE and goes on until the second, so the walls of Tarquinia cover five centuries of Etruscan life and belief. The archaeologist Massimo Pallottino called them “the first chapter in the history of Italian painting”.
Tarquinia is not the only place. The oldest known Etruscan wall paintings are in the Grotta Campana at Veii, and at Vulci the François Tomb, painted in the fourth or third century BCE, shows scenes from early Etruscan history; its paintings were detached and taken to Rome. But the most important group of painted tombs in Etruria is at Tarquinia.
How were they painted?
“Fresco”, strictly speaking, means paint laid on wet lime plaster, which binds the colour as it dries. The Etruscan tombs come close but not always exactly. At Tarquinia the painters spread a thin coat of lime plaster over the rock, a few millimetres thick, made of half lime, from the same limestone the tombs are cut into, and half sand; according to the notes of a twentieth-century palette now in the Harvard Art Museums, they then gave the dry plaster a thin coat of fine whitewash before painting. So “fresco” is the usual name rather than an exact description. The style is flat, in two dimensions: clear outlines, strong colours, no deep space.
Banquets, dancers, athletes
Why paint a party in a tomb? Because the Etruscans imagined the afterlife as an extension of life, and they furnished the tomb as a home, with banqueting ware, games and even food. The paintings carry the same idea onto the walls. In the Tomb of the Augurs, painted in the late sixth century BCE, there are wrestlers, dancers, musicians and a banquet, and these subjects remained standard for a long time; the Tombs of the Lionesses and of the Bacchantes, from the same century, are full of dancing and feasting. The Tomb of the Hunting and Fishing, of about 520 BCE, turns to the outdoors, as its name says. In the fifth century the Tomb of the Leopards, with its musicians, and the Tomb of the Triclinium, named after the Roman dining room and the finest painted tomb of that century, carry the same themes on.
The paintings were one part of the funeral setting. To read them properly you have to put them back with the rest of the tomb: the sarcophagi, the urns, the objects laid around the dead.
Darker walls
The tone did not stay cheerful. Over time Etruscan religion came to show the underworld in darker, more threatening terms, and the later tombs reflect it; the Tomb of the Shields, of the fourth century BCE, is a masterpiece of that later painting. A last, rare tradition of painting survives in the Tomb of the Cardinal, of the second century BCE.
Why they are so fragile
Opening the tombs changed the conditions that had kept the paintings for over two thousand years. Since the necropolis was opened to the public, moisture and fungus have attacked many of the paintings, and visitors’ breath and body heat alter the temperature and humidity of the chambers. In the mid-twentieth century some paintings were detached from the walls and taken to the museum in Tarquinia, a practice that has since stopped. The tombs have been known for a long time: Michelangelo visited Tarquinia during the Renaissance, and a sketch connected to that visit is in Florence. For the ancient painting of the Greeks, compare Greek painting of the same centuries, of which only a few pieces survive.
Where to see them
The Monterozzi necropolis at Tarquinia is part of the Parco archeologico di Cerveteri e Tarquinia and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In October 2026 it was open from Tuesday to Sunday, and the painted tombs open to visitors included those of the Lionesses, the Leopards and the Hunting and Fishing; which tombs are open can change, so check before you go. The detached paintings are on the second floor of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Palazzo Vitelleschi, closed at the same date for works.
Sources
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre, “Etruscan Necropolises of Cerveteri and Tarquinia” (1158).
- Ministero della Cultura, “Necropoli dei Monterozzi di Tarquinia” and “Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Tarquinia” (Parco archeologico di Cerveteri e Tarquinia).
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Tarquinia”, “Etruscan art”, “Etruscan religion”, “Veii”, “Vulci”, “Tomb of the Augurs”.
- Harvard Art Museums, “Etruscan Fresco Palette” (object 308536).
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Heilbrunn Timeline: T. Huntsman, “Etruscan Language and Inscriptions” (2013).
