Vatican Museums

Due to its notable size and exuberant decoration, this prestigious element of parade decoration evokes a fibula with a disc clasp already commonly used in the Iron Age: it was an ancient version of the modern safety pin, used to fasten and decorate robes. It fully epitomises the decorative techniques specific to Etruscan gold-working which, alongside iconographic motifs, can be traced back to a more ancient near-eastern tradition. Elements obtained with various techniques (embossing, punching and cutting) are enriched with a refined granulation in which minute micro-welded spheres outline the edges and details of the figures or define decorative motifs. The repertoire of animals and the symbolic apparatus are typical of the composite figurative culture that emerged in Etruria during the orientalising age. The Levantine contributions are particularly appreciable in the figures of the gryphons, the interwoven arches, the palmettes and the head of the Egyptian goddess Hathor which concludes the arch of the fibula.