Monthly Archive: September 2023

In the summer of 1934, a certain farmer named Michele was digging trenches in his fields when his plough hit something solid. More digging revealed a limestone sculpture, later ascertained to be from the sixth-fifth century BC. It is the oldest sculpted figure in Italy, the Guerriero di Capestrano. The warrior has been identified as Nevio Pompuledio. But more interesting to me is what the sculpture reveals about the craftsmanship of a people – the Piceni – who lived in an era almost too distant and too different to imagine, in a landscape which instead has perhaps altered little. Back to the present When we arrive in Capestrano on...