In Vetralla one night I was introduced to a friend of a friend who reached into a coat pocket and removed a number of jagged, colorful ceramic fragments. He had uncovered them that afternoon in his garden in Ischia di Castro, not far away. “Nothing special,” he said. “Probably late 17th or early 18th century. But quite nice, don't you think?” I thought they were wonderful. All of Tuscia was, for me, like that. A pocketful of shattered splendors.

Tuscia—the region in northern Lazio and southern Tuscany—was the heartland of Etruscan civilization from the eighth to the third century B.C. Later it was a place where rich Romans went when they wanted a break from the city. The houses of numerous noble families—Farnese, Orsini, Ruspoli, Lante Della Rovere, del Drago—are there, many of them still occupied by members of the same families.