An extraordinary collection of ancient Roman bronze votive statuettes discovered at a Tuscan spa town in November 2022 and likened to the world-famus Riace Bronzes is set to form the centre-piece of a major upcoming exhibition on the Etruscans in the United States.
    The statuettes, which were found at San Casciano dei Bagni and have revealed hitherto unknown links between the Etruscan and Roman worlds, will star in "The Etruscans: From the Heart of Ancient Italy," a major exhibition of approximately 200 works from 30 international museums, which will open on May 2, 2026, at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, before traveling to the San Antonio Museum of Art in Texas.
    It will be only the second trip outside Italy for the San Casciano pieces, which have just come back from a stellar exhibition in Berlin.
    Many of the San Casciano highlights will be included in the exhibition, curated by Renée Dreyfus, director of the Fine Arts Museums' ancient art section.
    Among the other most important loans are the grave goods from the Regolini-Galassi tomb in Cerveteri, one of the richest burials in the Etruscan world, coming from the Gregorian Etruscan Museum.
    The exhibit will be the focus of the section dedicated to the role of women, traditionally higher than in other ancient Mediterranean societies.
    Also on display in the US for the first time is the Zagreb Linen Book, the longest known Etruscan text: a 3rd-century BCE calendar with rituals and sacrifices linked to the different days of the year.
    "The Etruscans left us a legacy of extraordinary goldsmithing and bronze work, creating objects of unparalleled beauty," said Thomas P.

Campbell, director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
    The last Etruscan exhibition in the US was in 2009, when the Meadows Museum in Dallas presented "New Light on the Etruscans" on the excavations at Poggio Colla in Mugello.
    Dreyfus aimed to highlight a culture "little known or even unknown to the general public" in the United States.
    Also on display are inscribed artifacts, vases with the Etruscan alphabet, and an urn lid depicting a reclining man holding a liver, a ritual instrument of divination.
    But the real highlight will come from San Casciano: ambassadors of the most striking archaeological discovery in recent years, the bronzes from the ancient thermal sanctuary have traveled abroad only once, for the recently concluded exhibition at the Staatliche Kunst in Berlin.
    "Having even one piece from San Casciano is an extraordinary coup for this museum," said Dreyfus.
    Among the other most anticipated and spectacular pieces will be a libation cup from Palestrina decorated with 250,000 gold granules, on loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
    The curator, who collaborated with Etruscologist Richard Daniel De Puma, professor emeritus at the University of Iowa, has also selected works from museum storage rooms.
    "We want to introduce little-known objects to even the experts," she explained.
    The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco—which encompasses the de Young and the Legion of Honor—have held rich collections of ancient art from Egypt, the Near East, Greece, the Aegean, Etruria, and Rome since their founding.
    Only ten of the approximately 200 pieces on display come from the museums' own collections.

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