Gian Francesco Gamurrini

Who was Gian Francesco Gamurrini?

Gian Francesco Gamurrini, an Italian archeologist and historian, bibliophile and connoisseur from an aristocratic Aretine family, found his interest in history initially piqued when he was selected by lot, at the age of 25, Rector of the Fraternità dei Laici, an ancient confraternity of Arezzo, whose history he published at the end of his term of office. Though he had studied in Perugia, the library of the Fraternità was his true school, sparking his interests in numismatics and Etruscan studies, with which he was to make his name. Emil Hübner, who was in the Arezzo library collecting inscriptions for Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum introduced him to Wilhelm Henzen, and together they encouraged him to publish his first work, Le iscrizioni degli antichi vasi fittili aretini. He began to collect Etruscan and Roman inscriptions in the area of Arezzo, a project which he never brought to publishable form, and explored Etruscan and Roman sites in Central Italy, project that was to bear fruit years later in his archaeological map of Central Italy.

In 1865 he agitated for the protection of the artistic patrimony of Arezzo, as monasteries were being dissolved and unneeded churches secularized. In his first effort he saved from dismemberment the great altar of Santa Maria della Pieve ad Arezzo, enclosing a painting by Vasari. At this period he met in Rome Francesco Orioli, whose course in Etruscan epigraphy Gamurrini followed attentively. It was Orioli who suggested the fruitful methodology, that of recording the results of his researches by subject. He pursued this schedario Gamurrini for the rest of his life.