Etruscan Terracotta Roofs

The Etruscans of central Italy built temples and halls whose most striking feature was the roof. Above walls of timber and mud brick, wide timber roofs were tiled and their edges covered with brightly painted terracotta, while rows of terracotta statues stood along the ridge. Unlike marble, terracotta could not be recycled, so a large amount of this roof decoration survives.

Early houses

Ordinary Etruscan and early Italian houses were built largely of earth and organic materials. Villanovan hut urns, used for cremated remains, model houses with sloping roofs whose timbers cross at the ridge and project in V shapes, often with a smoke hole above the door. The so-called Casa Romuli on the Palatine in Rome was a hut of wooden posts, wattle-and-daub walls and thatch, possibly typical of ordinary housing.

Tiled halls and temples

Fired roof tiles reached Italy from Greece within about fifty years of their first use at Corinth around 700-650 BC. By the 6th century BC, large buildings such as the Archaic complex at Poggio Civitate (Murlo) and Zone F at Acquarossa had stone foundations, tiled roofs and elaborate architectural terracottas. Monumental temples began around 600 BC.

Roof decoration

• Revetments: all the edges of the roof were faced with painted terracotta plaques. Large cavetto mouldings, often painted with vertical "tongue" patterns, formed the cornices, combined with round mouldings painted with scales.
• Antefixes: decorated terracotta ends closed the cover tiles along the eaves; many attractively shaped and painted examples are in museums.
• Ridge sculpture: Etruscan roofs often carried a row of statues along the central ridge, beyond the acroteria used on Greek temples. The Apollo of Veii belonged to such a group.
• Wide eaves: reconstructions of the first Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus in Rome, traditionally dedicated in 509 BC and decorated by Etruscan specialists, show very deep eaves.

Tombs

Rock-cut chamber tombs, as in the Banditaccia necropolis, often reproduce wooden ceilings in stone, with carved beams that imitate the roofs of richer houses. They are an important source for how Etruscan roof frames looked.

Legacy

The Etruscan combination of tiled timber roofs and moulded terracotta passed into Roman temple building and the "Tuscan" temple later described by Vitruvius. The Etruscans also used the curved tile now called the coppo.