An Etruscan votive bull has returned to the National Roman Museum more than 100 years after it was loaned out and lost in the upheaval of World War II.
The prodigal bull reemerged during the pandemic. It was mailed anonymously to the Civic Museums of Monza along with a typewritten letter entitled “The return home of 47220 after 80 years and more.” The brief letter from the anonymous writer declared “Before embarking on my last journey I want to return the bull, because I would like to see it exhibited in a museum.” That 47220 turned out to be an inventory number written on the side of the terracotta votive.
First discovered in the 1910s during excavations of the Etruscan city of Veii that uncovered the exceptional terracotta statue of Apollo that once stood on the ridgebeam of the temple of Menerva (the Etruscan version of Athena/Minerva), the bull entered the collection of the National Roman Museum where it was assigned the 47220 inventory number. In the 1920s, it was loaned to the Humanitarian Society of Milan along with 22 other archaeological artifacts for use by the students of the Superior Institute of Artistic Industries which at the time was headquartered on Villa Reale in Monza. The Institute kept the artifacts until it was shuttered in 1943 during the war. The little bull disappeared with the rest of the loaned artifacts in the chaos of World War II and its aftermath.
The Torello di Veio (Little Bull of Veii) is a zoomorphic figurine typical of Etruscan votive offerings between the 4th and 2nd centuries B.C. This was the period after the Roman conquest of Veii when the sanctuary was in decline and offerings were modest compared to the more elaborate votives from earlier phases. The votives from this period usually depicted domesticated livestock like cattle and pigs. They were used as symbolic replacements of animal sacrifices and/or to request divine protection for a farmer’s stock which was essential to a family’s survival in that age.
According to the letter writer, the bull passed through numerous hands before he acquired it, but it doesn’t seem to have travelled too far from where it was last seen, as the letter writer was in Monza and believed it belonged to the museum there, not to its actual owner in Rome. Guilt and his impending demise apparently motivated him to return it at long last. The Carabinieri of the Unit for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of Monza officially returned the wee bull to the museum on Wednesday.
* This article was originally published here
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