Giuseppe Sassatelli - Etruscans and Risorgimento. The Bologna Carnival of 1874 between city identity and national unity

President of the National Institute of Etruscan and Italian Studies,Giuseppe Sassatelli briefly makes an outline of the history of the first discoveries that revealed the presence of the Etruscans in the city of Bologna (ancient Felsina) and in the surrounding area, which took place between 1850 and 1870. It is exactly in this context, in the volatile climate of the great Risorgimento so deeply interested in the past and origins, that in 1874 the annual city carnival of Bologna had the Etruscans as its main subject. Far from being just a funny initiative, the parade turned out to have a very important political and identitarian character.