In the early 3rd century BCE, when Rome was inching ever closer to its conquest of Etruria, a sacred outdoor place was founded in the valleys between San Gimignano and val d’Elsa. There, near an altar, a bronze statue was buried, perhaps as an offering, representing a young man himself making an offering: an ancient masterpiece of extraordinary importance forged by an artisan from Volterra. For 500 years, offerings were left on its “tomb” (objects made of metal and pottery, as well as coins and balsams), sealing the sacred nature of the site. Time passed and the Romans arrived, but the place remained sacred and the statue bore witness changes in culture that brought different peoples to the sanctuary, located on the border with Volterra.
In 2010, during the renovation of a private building on the Torraccia di Chiusi plains in the San Gimignano environs, workers made an extraordinary discovery. The bronze of a young man making an offering was buried in a horizontal positioned, almost as if laid to sleep, and next to what might have been its altar, a square block of stone where rituals were carried out, including religious offerings to local deities.
The bronze, nicknamed Ombra di San Gimignano (Shadow of San Gimignano), is similar in style to Volterra’s Ombra della Sera (Evening Shadow). It is exemplary of early Hellenism and reinterprets a long, slender central-Italian ex-voto type closely tied to local religious tradition.
The Ombra was displayed for the first time in the special exhibition Hinthial. L’Ombra di San Gimignano. L’Offerente e i reperti rituali etruschi e romani, held at the archaeological museum San Gimignano, where it remains on view today. The Etruscan term in the title of the exhibition, hinthial, means both “soul” and “sacred”.
Outside its tomb, the statue tells the tale of five centuries of offerings, hopes and prayers. The Ombra di San Gimignano is a new piece of an ancient story that enriches a region already rich in art and history. A city known as an icon of the Middle Ages that never ceases to amaze, becoming one of the chapters of Etruscan history and culture.
