Abstract

This essay aims to focus on the unexpectedly weak sensitivity to visual arts shown by the Nobel Prize in Literature (1906), Giosuè Carducci. As a matter of fact, Carducci's imagery of ancient Greek art and landscape looks very scholarly and in some way phantasmal, whereas his expertise on Italian and especially Etruscan antiquities appears to be remarkably in-depth and up-to-date. The reasons for such an impressive difference of perception lie in the Etruscan self-identity, claimed by Carducci as born in Tuscany, and his dedicated time and attendance at scientific meetings of archaeologists and historians, who were operating at the University of Bologna.