He is a specialist in all the main aspects of the Etruscan civilization. His chief research field concerns the history and culture of Etruscans in the Po Valley: the peopling; the economy; the architecture of the houses; imports and trade; the "stele felsinee" and the iconography of their decorations; the spreading of the alphabet among the Etruscan population in the Po Valley and the other peoples living in Northern Italy; relationships between Etruscans, Veneti and Celts; the genesis of the city, its planning and monumental features; the epigraphic documents found in the Etruscan Po Valley.
He has been Director of the Excavation Campaigns in the Etruscan city of Marzabotto from 1988 to 2016.
City planning and architecture in the Etruscan city of Marzabotto:
After a gap in time corresponding to many decades, excavations in the city have begun in 1988 and in the recent years have led to important discoveries in the House 1 (Regio IV-Insula 1) and in the temple of Tinia (Regio IV-Insula 1), both in the knowledge of the Etruscan architecture of the houses in Etruria (padana and tirrenica) and in the comprehension of the features of the Etruscan temples and sanctuaries.
Many papers concerning these themes have been recently published: G. Sassatelli, Il tempio di Tina a Marzabotto e i culti della città etrusca, in G. Cresci Marrone, M. Tirelli (a c.), Altnoi. Il santuario altinate: strutture del sacro a confronto e i luoghi di culto lungo la via Annia (Atti del Convegno, Venezia 2006), Roma 2009, pp. 325-344 and G. Sassatelli, E. Govi, Cults and Foundation Rites in the Etruscan City of Marzabotto, in L. B. van der Meer (a c.), Material Aspects of Etruscan Religion (Proceedings of the International Colloquium, Leiden 2008), Leuven 2010, pp. 27-37 (Both of them are proceedings of International Confercences); E. Govi, G. Sassatelli (a c.), Marzabotto. La casa 1 della Regio IV insula 2, I. Lo scavo. II. I materiali, Bologna 2010 (the complete edition of 20 years of research and excavations in Marzabotto and the first volume of the series Kainua. Studies in the Etruscan city of Marzabotto).
Etruscans and Greeks: the genesis of a local figurative language in the Etruscan Po Valley and the funerary customs and ideology.
The corpus of the Stele felsinee, a coherent series of funerary stones created by the Etruscan city of Bologna from the 5th to the beginning of the 4th Century B.C., represents an excellent object of study to comprehend the cultural relationship between Etruscans and Greeks, which led to the genesis of a local, figurative Etruscan language. The cultural influence coming from Greece concerned both the world of the iconography, e.g. figurative models and schemes, and the beliefs in afterlife (G. Sassatelli, E. Govi, Ideologia funeraria e celebrazione del defunto nelle stele etrusche di Bologna, in «StEtr» LXIII, 2007 (2009), pp. 67-92; G. Sassatelli, Riflessioni sulla “stele della nave” di Bologna, in S. Bruni (a c.), Etruria e Italia preromana. Studi in onore di Giovannangelo Camporeale, Pisa-Roma 2009, pp. 833-840).
The Etruscans in the Po Valley and the nearest peoples.
The reconstruction of the Etruscan occupation of the Po Valley area and, in particular, of the frontier barriers is part of the most recent scientific production (2009 and 2010), which concerned the territories of Parma, West Emilia, Bazzano and more In general a picture of historical synthesis. The cultural exchange between Etruria Padana and neighboring peoples focuses on another research theme that is concretizing in the study of an epigraphic document in venetic language found in Bologna.
Etruscan epigraphy.
A particular research field is the spread of Etruscan writing in the Po Valley and the historical, social and cultural implications that the epigraphic framework allows to analyse. After investigating individual urban realities, such as that of Marzabotto, the research is now oriented towards the philological reconstruction of the whole panorama of Etruria Padana. This project, launched in 2007, will produce a new volume of CIE dedicated to Etruria Padana now in press, an instrument of study and knowledge essential for the evaluation of all aspects of writing.
