Mario Moretti (archaeologist)

Mario Moretti (born on May 28, 1912 in Rome ; died on January 16, 2002 there ) was an Italian classical archaeologist and etrusologist .

Life

Mario Moretti was the son of the classical archaeologist Giuseppe Moretti , who was first inspector from 1920, from 1923 soprintendente of the Soprintendenza delle antichità delle Marche e dell'Abruzzo and director of the National Museum in Ancona . Mario Moretti grew up there until he and his parents returned to Rome in 1930, where his father had been entrusted with the Soprintendenza of Latium and the management of the Museo Nazionale Romano . In Rome, Mario Moretti took a degree at the Faculty of Arts of the University of La Sapienza , on which he in 1936 Giulio Giglioli the Laurea received. His dissertation on the city center of Ancona was published in 1945 in the series Italia romana: Municipi e Colonie . A lifelong friendship with the archaeologists Carlo Pietrangeli - later Director General of the Vatican Museums - and Massimo Pallottino went back to his student days . From 1936 to 1939 he continued his studies and training for antiquity at the Scuola di Archaeologia in Rome.

For the 2000 anniversary of the birthday of Emperor Augustus in 1938, he curated the exhibition area dedicated to medicine as part of the Mostra Augustea della Romanità . In the same year, his academic teacher at the University of Rome, Pietro Romanelli , gave him a temporary position at the directorate of the excavations of Civitavecchia and Tolfa , where he and Raniero Mengarelli processed the findings and prepared them for the publication of the excavation results in Caere .

During the Second World War , Mario Moretti was a soldier with the rank of lieutenant from 1941, was taken prisoner in Algeria and participated in the liberation of Italy after the fall of Mussolini . For this he received the Croce al merito di guerra after the end of the war . In 1945 he got a job at the Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia in Rome, then became inspector in Cerveteri , the ancient Caere , and in 1951 he was finally head of the excavations there. In the 1950s, Mario Moretti was part of the group of archaeologists who built the Soprintendenza dell'Etruria Meridionale . At the same time, from 1957 he was involved in the redesign and expansion of Villa Giulia initiated by Renato Bartoccini .

During these years he took part in archaeological studies in Tarquinia , Tolfa, Allumiere , Bracciano , Blera and other places. He also investigated the small Etruscan settlement near Blera, known under the modern name of San Giovenale . A long-term collaboration with the Svenska Institutet i Rom developed here , which continued at the Etruscan site of Acquarossa and was enhanced by the visit of the Swedish King Gustav VI. Adolf was honored.

With the support of the Fondazione Carlo M. Lerici , he also began his excavations in 1957 in the Etruscan necropolis of Cerveteri and the Monterozzi necropolis of Tarquinia. In addition, he carried out surveys , which were fundamental to the knowledge of the Etruscan settlement core of Tuscania . In 1961 Mario Moretti followed Renato Bartoccini as soprintendente in the direction of the Soprintendenza dell'Etruria Meridionale. Here he developed a decentralized system for managing antiquities, securing and opening up the ancient legacies. The core element was the establishment of a number of museums, which were added to the Etruscan Museum in the Villa Giulia, which was now under his direction. These include: the Museo nazionale Cerite in Cerveteri, the Museo archeologico nazionale di Civitavecchia , the Museo nazionale archeologico di Vulci , the Museo nazionale dell'Agro Falisco , as well as numerous antiquarians. The Museo archeologico nazionale di Tarquinia and the Museo archeologico nazionale di Viterbo experienced significant expansions.

The collection of Villa Giulia was enriched by the important finds from Pyrgi - together with Massimo Pallottino he uncovered the mythological reliefs of Temple A and the gold sheets from Pyrgi - and Vulci . The numerous excavation sites examined under his soprint tendency were made accessible to the public. After retiring from the post of soprintendente in 1977, he devoted himself to the management of the Museo Civico di Viterbo and the Museo Archeologico di San Severino , now known by the name of his father: Museo archeologico Giuseppe Moretti .

On the occasion of his death, a colloquium took place in 2003; grave 5591 from the Monterozzi necropolis bears his name .

literature

• Giovanni Colonna : Mario Moretti, 1912-2002. In: Atti della Pontificia accademia romana di archeologia. Rendiconti 74, 2001-02, pp. 335-339.
• Eugenio Moscetti: Ricordo di Mario Moretti. In: Annali Associazione Nomentana di Storia e Archeologia 2002, pp. 157–158 ( digitized version ).
• Maristella Pandolfini Angeletti: Archeologia in Etruria meridionale. Atti delle giornate di studio in ricordo di Mario Moretti, Civita Castellana, 14–15 November 2003. “L'Erma” di Bretschneider, Rome 2006.