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Luigi Rovati Foundation photo gallery
Photo gallery Civic archaeological museum

Milan, 1 February 2023 - The exhibition "Etruscan Spina and the city of Milan" opens tomorrow, Thursday 2 February, as part of the national celebrations for the centenary of the beginning of the excavations of the Etruscan city of Spina, created by the Rovati Foundation in collaboration with the Municipality of Milan and the Civic Archaeological Museum of Milan.

The exhibition at the headquarters of the Luigi Rovati Foundation is part of a joint project between the Luigi Rovati Foundation and displays a selection of Attic red-figure vases, dating back to the 5th century BC, from the deposits of the Civic Archaeological Museum, witnesses of the richness and variety of the funerary objects found in the thousands of excavated tombs. At the same time, the Civic Archaeological Museum proposes at its headquarters in Corso Magenta the exhibition of other finds from Spina and an in-depth analysis of the contribution of the city of Milan to the excavations, which testifies to the city's great interest in the Etruscan world. 
A commercial port on the Po delta with a dominant role in the Adriatic, Spina was founded by the Etruscans around 540 BC and for a long time represented the gateway to the Mediterranean for the entire Etruscan-Po area.

The five Attic vases exhibited in the Rovati Foundation – two column kraters, a trilobed Oinochoe, a bell krater and an Askos – decorated with the red-figure technique and dating back to the 1957th century BC, were found in the city's necropolises and testify to the role Spina's fundamental role in trade with Greece. Their arrival at the Civic Archaeological Museum of Milan in July XNUMX, within a larger nucleus comprising a total of twenty-six ceramic finds, occurred as part of a collaboration involving the Municipality of Milan, the Pro Spina Institution and the Ministry of Education which at the time had responsibility for Cultural Heritage which is now the responsibility of the Ministry of Culture. To support the archaeological investigation of the site and counteract clandestine excavations, the Municipality allocated a fund of five million lire, against which it obtained from the Ministry the transfer of a batch of vases from seizures carried out by the Guardia di Finanza. This confirms Milan's link with the Etruscans, in harmony with an interest that the city has cultivated since the Risorgimento and with continuity since the Second World War, and expresses the important role of the institutions in the conservation and valorization of the Italian cultural heritage.

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Luigi Rovati Foundation
Civic archaeological museum