Vatican Museums

These two rooms house objects in gold for personal ornamentation, produced with great technical ability and prowess in design by Etruscan goldsmiths during the various epochs. The visitor is drawn by an extraordinary collection of Etruscan works in gold, whose most complex and exclusive productions of the Orientalising and Archaic periods (from the seventh to the early fifth century B.C.) are joined by specimens representing the classical and Hellenistic ages (fifth to first century B.C.). The section concludes with a series of imperial Roman works in gold from the first century B.C. to the second century A.D. The collection includes fibulae, spiral hair clasps, earrings, necklaces, pendants, crowns and rings, as well as works in amber, ivory and precious stones.
Etruscan jewellery was appreciated throughout the ancient world not so much for the use of gold, in reality very limited, but rather for the sophisticated techniques that led them to produce unique objects that remain unrepeatable to this day, composed of hundreds and often thousands of tiny parts, the details of which can now be seen in their full complexity only under the microscope, an instrument obviously unknown in antiquity.
The main techniques used were filigree and granulation; this latter involved the production of minute spheres of infinitesimal dimensions, forming a sort of ‘dust’, fixed by micro welding to the surface of the jewel to create designs or motifs. In addition, goldsmiths used casting, hammering of sheet metal, moulds, punches and chisels, and obtained threads by twisting minute strips of gold.