Bettona Rediscovers its Etruscan Past as the Treasures of the Tomba del Colle Return Home

A visit to Bettona’s Etruscan museum can become much more than an archaeological stop. For Lea Volpe, a Canadian of Italian heritage who lives in the United States and spends part of the year in Umbria, it became part of a lively summer evening combining ancient history, local traditions and the town’s celebrated Sagra dell’Oca.

A communications and marketing professional with a longstanding fascination for the Etruscans, Lea Volpe has visited museums, exhibitions and archaeological sites in Italy and abroad. In Bettona, she approached the temporary exhibition devoted to the Tomba del Colle with the curiosity of an informed but non-specialist visitor, attentive both to the objects on display and to the stories they can still tell.

Here is her account of an evening in Bettona, where Etruscan gold, archival discoveries, multimedia reconstructions and goose ragù come together in an unexpectedly vivid portrait of the town’s ancient identity.

*******

BETTONA, AUGUST, 18, 2026 – “Look at that cool T-shirt that says ‘Livin’ the Vita D’Oca!’” exclaimed my 20-year-old son. We were in Bettona on the second-to-last night of the Sagra dell’Oca, the 42nd edition of the annual goose festival held in this charming Umbrian hill town, officially listed among I Borghi più belli d’Italia, and also a small treasure trove of Etruscan history.

Experiencing a typical Italian summer festival — especially one devoted to discovering just how many ways there are to cook and eat a goose — was my bargaining chip to convince my family to join me on a visit to the Museo della Città di Bettona, which is hosting the special exhibition Etruschi a Bettona.

The show brings home, more than a century after their discovery, some of the extraordinary finds from the Tomba del Colle, unearthed near Bettona in 1913. The tomb and its contents were first presented to the scholarly world in 1916 by archaeologist Giuseppe Cultrera in Notizie degli Scavi. Etruscan Times has previously told the story of the discovery and the tomb.

After their excavation, the finds were sent to the Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia in Rome. In 1956 they returned to Umbria with the opening of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale dell’Umbria in Perugia. Now, more than 110 years after leaving Bettona, a selection has returned to the town, allowing residents and visitors to see them in the landscape and historical setting from which they came.

A celebration of Bettona’s place in Etruscan history

Above all, the exhibition is a celebration of Bettona’s important place in Etruscan history. A quotation from Valerio Bazzoffia, Mayor of Bettona, greets visitors at the entrance: “The entire project emphasizes the Etruscan civilization, its peculiar complexity and mystery, the environment that welcomed it, questioning its importance for the entire Umbrian and Italian civilization, but above all investigating what Bettona’s role was.”

The exhibition succeeds in doing exactly that.

For me, one of its highlights was not a piece of gold or pottery, but a group of documents: mid-19th-century letters and drawings exchanged among Adriano Barocchi, Pio Biancalana and Filippo Senesi, scholars who recorded antiquities and stretches of Etruscan walls emerging in and around Bettona decades before the discovery of the Tomba del Colle.

There is something particularly evocative about looking at their handwriting and sketches. Imagine the excitement of these men as evidence accumulated that Bettona had played an important role in the ancient world — an Etruscan centre on the left bank of the Tiber, in a region where Etruscan and Umbrian cultures met and interacted.

The astonishing skill of Etruscan goldsmiths

The exhibition also contains some remarkable examples of Etruscan jewellery and introduces visitors to the sophistication of ancient goldworking.

Several pieces illustrate techniques that flourished in Etruria during the Orientalizing period, including granulation and filigree, methods associated with the intense cultural contacts linking Etruria with the eastern Mediterranean from the eighth century B.C. onward.

One pair of earrings stopped me in my tracks. An elaborate upper element supports a tiny suspended vase, surrounded by extraordinarily delicate chains and clusters of grapes. The amount of detail — and the artistic imagination required to produce it — seems almost impossible.

I found myself staring and wondering: What sort of tiny tools did the goldsmith use? How could anyone work at such a minute scale without modern magnification? Who made these earrings? Who owned them, and wore them? And how did they eventually come to rest in a tomb at Bettona?

These are the kinds of questions that make ancient objects suddenly seem personal. The distance of more than two thousand years becomes, for a moment, surprisingly short.

A virtual journey inside the tomb

Another strength of the exhibition is its multimedia approach. Drawings, reconstructions and video help visitors understand the architecture and dimensions of the Tomba del Colle and give an impression of what it feels like to enter and move through the monument.

That was especially useful for visitors like us who had not arranged an actual visit to the tomb itself. Access has been offered on selected dates by advance reservation as part of Bettona’s programme of Etruscan initiatives — although, as we discovered, not on Sagra dell’Oca evenings.

The museum has also organized lectures, guided walks, educational activities and events aimed at different audiences, transforming the exhibition into something broader than a display of archaeological objects: an opportunity for the town to rediscover and explain its own ancient identity.

The special exhibition is complemented by the museum’s permanent archaeological collection, which includes other finds connected with Bettona and extensive information on the town’s place within the ancient settlement network of this part of Umbria.

The result is unusually accessible. There is enough substance for someone already fascinated by the Etruscans, but not so much that a first-time visitor feels overwhelmed. You can understand the essentials, admire the objects and leave wanting to know more.

And then, of course, there was the Sagra.

After the museum we stepped back into a Bettona transformed by summer festival life: tables, lights, crowds, food and the unmistakable aroma of goose coming from the kitchens. The goose ragù was absolutely delicious.

So my son’s T-shirt discovery turned out to be the perfect motto for the evening. We had come to Bettona for Etruscan archaeology and a traditional Umbrian festival, and somehow the two fitted together perfectly.

We really did spend an evening “Livin’ the Vita D’Oca” — Etruscan-style.

@EtruscanTimes