Archaeological Museum of Bologna

Rooms Xa, X and Xb house the Etruscan antiquities brought to light in Bologna and the surrounding area from the mid-1800s to the opening decades of the 1900s, a time when scientific interest and passionate urban renewal led to quite exceptional discoveries, both in quantity and in quality. Thanks to the work of key figures such as Giovanni Gozzadini, Antonio Zannoni and Edoardo Brizio, who updated the methods and science of archaeology, thousands of objects was exposed in the Museum's rooms.The Museum, opened on september 25, 1881, became one of the most important on a national level.

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The large Room X,  which houses the finds of Etruscan Bologna, retains largely the decorations and the layout of the original nineteenth-century Museum, which had an educational purpose.

The frescoes decorating the Museum's Room X reproduce several Etruscan tomb paintings (from Tarquinia, Chiusi, Orvieto) executed shortly before the 1881 inauguration. The corpus was conceived and promoted by G. Gozzadini, who was convinced that the murals would provide a "visual description" of how the items on display were used, as well as providing didactic assistance in University teaching of Etruscan Archaeology. A successful artist of the time, Bolognese painter Luigi Busi, was appointed to realize frescoes.