Capitoline Wolf: ancient or medieval?

In this case I'm going to put my odds on ancient, despite recent claims otherwise:

"Now incontestable proofs tell us that also the she-wolf is not a product of the Antiquities," Adriano La Regina, former Rome’s archaeological superintendent and professor of Etruscology at Rome's La Sapienza University, wrote in Italy’s daily "La Repubblica."

According to La Regina, analysis carried out by restorer Anna Maria Carruba during the 1997 restoration of the bronze statue showed that the she-wolf was cast as a single unit. This technique was typically used in the Middle Ages.

But if this is the argument, there's simply not enough comparative material for certainty.

Gregory Warden, a professor of art history at Southern Methodist University who specializes in Etruscan bronzes, found the suggestion that the she-wolf may be medieval "intriguing." But, he does not consider the matter closed.

"While the statue is singular, and thus difficult to compare to other Etruscan statuary, I do not think that the technical argument is fully persuasive, since we have so little comparative evidence for large-scale bronze casting in the Etruscan world," he said. "We certainly cannot assume that Etruscan bronze-casting techniques would always have been identical to those of the Greeks."

More on the Wolf here; it is still displayed as Etruscan, incidentally.

Hat tip to reader Laura Parrott, who alerted me to this some time ago -- I'm only gradually catching up on all the news from November.

Posted by David on December 5, 2006 12:01 PM