Anne Wildschut

(Re)defining Ancient Etruria in the Renaissance: Etruscan art and history in the formation of local, regional and national identities in central and northern Italy

PhD supervisor: Professor Alison Wright

Working title for PhD: (Re)defining Ancient Etruria in the Renaissance: Etruscan art and history in the formation of local, regional and national identities in central and northern Italy. 
 

a young woman in a black jacket smiles

My research concerns the shifting perceptions of Etruscan art and ‘Etruscanness’ in the 15th and 16th centuries, examining the role played by the remnants of the Etruscan past, uncovered or imagined, in the formation of civic history, memory and identity in Italian cities typically excluded from normative conceptions of the Renaissance ‘revival’ of Etruscan antiquity. Foregrounding the diverse artistic and textual responses to this pre-Roman civilisation in cities and towns like Verona, Mantua, Tarquinia (Corneto), Ferrara and Rome, I critique the traditional conception of this ‘revival’ as an inward-looking, uniquely Tuscan phenomenon, driven and dominated by Republican and Medici rulers of Florence. 

For its Renaissance observers and interpreters, the boundaries of what constituted the ‘Etruscan’ past were highly fluid and unstable. Against the backdrop of a peninsula-wide competition for the most noble and ancient origins, this malleable Etruscan heritage was strategically and creatively leveraged by antiquarians, artists, and communes to construct histories and visions of local space, place and identity. Examining the artistic, monumental and textual legacies of the Etruscans as (re)discovered and imagined by its Renaissance viewers in the context of both ongoing attempts to outline the diverse and composite nature of the Renaissance ‘rebirth’ of classical antiquity, as well as wider interdisciplinary discourses concerning authenticity, temporality, cultural memory and the invention of tradition, I look to complicate traditional geographical and chronological assumptions about the reception of the Etruscan past. By addressing the broadening understandings of the ‘Etruscan’ during the Renaissance, my research will additionally seek to reflect on the continued potency of these histories and identities in shaping modern Italian nationalisms, where the Etruscans appear variously as racialized ‘other’ or proud autochthonous ancestor. 

My PhD is fully funded by UCL’s Critical Histories of Art Studentship.

Publications

  • (In Press) Contributions to Scholten, Frits (ed.) Metamorphoses: Exhibition Catalogue, Rijksmuseum, The Netherlands (February 2026).
  • (In Press) ‘The modèle Italienne in The Netherlands: Exploring identity and immigration in Georgine Schwartze’s bust of Francesca Riozzi’ (provisional title), The Rijksmuseum Bulletin (2027-1, March). 

Awards

  • 2025: Critical Histories of Art Studentship, UCL.
  • 2025: Scholarship for preparing a PhD Project, Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (KNIR).
  • 2024: NIKI/GWO Fellowship, Dutch University Institute for Art History, Florence (NIKI).
  • 2022: Proxime Accessit Gibbs Prize in Classical Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Oxford.
  • 2020-2022: Academic Scholarship, Keble College, University of Oxford. 

Professional Experience

Curatorial Intern, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam (2023), co-curation of upcoming exhibition Metamorphoses (February - May 2026). 

Qualifications

  • RMA Art History, Utrecht University, 2022-2024 (Cum Laude).
  • BA Classical Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Oxford, 2019-2022 (First Class Honours). 

Contact

Email: anne.wildschut.25@ucl.ac.uk