The National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia is contributing a significant loan to the exhibition ODISSEE. Diasporas, Inventions, Migrations, Journeys, Pilgrimages (Turin, Palazzo Madama, Medieval Court, 16 November 2017–19 February 2018), curated by Guido Curto.
The exhibition aims to explore the theme of travel and migration, spanning history and the present day, and is divided into 12 thematic sections, each represented by five or six highly significant works illustrating the major migratory events in our history: from prehistory to today’s migrations, via the expansion of the great empires, the barbarian invasions, the pilgrimages associated with the major religions, the voyages of explorers and conquerors, and emigration to the Americas.
The earliest reflections on the theme of travel can be traced back to the ancient world and refer to the tale of the Odyssey, with the disorientation of the journey and the encounter with the Other.
And it is precisely in this section that the precious vase on loan from the Villa Giulia Museum is displayed: a splendid black-figure hydria belonging to the Cerveterian hydria class, produced in Cerveteri by craftsmen from northern Ionia (present-day northern Turkey), attributed to the Eagle Painter (530–520 BC) and originating from a tomb in the Banditaccia necropolis in Cerveteri. On one side of this vase is depicted one of the most famous episodes of Odysseus’s adventurous journey to return to his Ithaca: the blinding of the Cyclops Polyphemus.