Eleonora Romanò

The imposition of Christianity on Western civilizations influenced the approach of research into the themes of sexuality for centuries. In Roman society sexuality, in its various forms, was perceived as a natural thing: the pleasures of the flesh are not repressed and the many forms of sexual intercourse are not despised. In the late Republican and in the Imperial Ages, sexual pleasure, even outside the marriage, was considered a legitimate and personal choice: many and cheap were the places of 'unofficial' love (called specifically lupanares) and innumerable were women available for a fee (called meretrices, or more volgarly lupae). The linguistic expressions associated with this kind of sexuality (for example, prostare ‘standing in front of the brothel’, prostituere ‘to show’) are "technical terms" that are also attested in subsequent centuries in reference to that hedonistic reality. The advent of Christianity, from late antiquity to the whole Middle Age, has limited the use of this linguistic forms and prohibited behaviors associated with prostitution, considered sinful and immoral, and therefore subject to public sanctions. In spite of this, the sexing industry continued to spread, occupying closed spaces, hidden to the common judgment. This paper focus on the theme of the circulation of linguistic elements related to sexual practices, their free manifestation and their related structures in a diachronic sense.

The ling-lasting production period of the Hellenistic Etruscan urns, typical of the territories of the ancient Chiusi, Perugia and Volterra, allows to evaluate the diachronic evolution of decorations, iconographic choices and inserted symbols, connected with the precise will of the commissions or of the producers themselves. The representation of conjugal love is quite common, especially in the Volterra sphere in the centuries II and I BC: in such cases the official nature of the bond merges with the juridical-social significance and it is privately and publicly diffused by mean of funerary containers. The expressive ways of marital fidelity, of strong affectivity, and of the resulting pain for the death of one of the two, represent variations and shadings which are are beyond the most commonly used compositional choices and and result from the internal processing of the same lapicides executed upon request. The most intimate attesting choices provide models derived from Greek mythological narrative forms (directly extracted from these or locally reworked) or from different moments of coupledom and representing amorous union; they see in the funeral scene the enrichment of 'pathetic messages' related tto the parting between the two lovers. Further information is ideological-affective and mainly refers to the "times" of the couple: from the moment of the official union to that of the final greetings, the different phases can be prefigured (in some specimens explicitly and personally) to precise ways in the family relationship. With this study, we intend to examine the iconographic, symbolic and thematic aspects with which one of the two spouses chose to honor the other by communicating the life they spent together.

Volterra’s alabaster: geological features, anthropic uses and places of extraction. The main extraction areas of Volterra’s alabaster are located in central-northern Tuscany, between the current provinces of Pisa and Livorno. Several varieties of alabaster are reported: ‘Agata bionda’, ‘Bardiglio’, ‘Cenerino’, ‘Gabbro ‘and, above all, the’ Scaglione ‘, the quality with the highest purity and transparency among them. Aspects such as abundance in the territory, extraction methods, ease of processing and, of course, aesthetic factors have made such a material a valid mean for various artisanal and artistic productions since ancient times. Our study intends to analyze the specific geological characteristics of Volterra’s alabaster, identifying the extractive areas with their corresponding typological varieties and the different anthropic uses.

It was the Etruscan community of Volterra who discovered and used the local alabaster as a craft and artistic material,: it was used, starting from the IV century, both for the execution of decorated funeral urns for valuable everyday objects. In Roman times and during the late ancient and medieval periods, the use of alabaster for artisanal production was considerably reduced. A "renaissance" of the use of the alabaster came about in the second half of the sixteenth century, when some Volterra artists chose it to make artifacts of sacred art. Starting from the second half of the seventeenth century the alabaster processing was arranged for a wider commercial diffusion: the foundation of the Officina Inghirami in 1791 marked a decisive turning point in the evolution of the alabaster craft: Marcello Inghirami Fei was convinced that the working of Volterra stone could have developed only through an international production company, attentive in its models to contemporary stylistic trends and supported by a solid commercial organization. In line with this project, many 'alabaster travelers' contributed to the export of Volterran productions throughout the world during the nineteenth century. Our proposal intends to illustrate, in a diachronic perspective, the factors and motivations behind the spread and knowledge of the alabaster in the Italian and extra European territory.