lengthened and bent to the earth. The sculptures of Quinto Martini were also inspired by the Etruscan style, which was deeply rooted in his area where there are important Etruscan archeological sites. In 1935 Martini relocated from the Tuscan countryside to Florence, where he died in 1990. Quinto Martini as sculptor and mature artist Across the 1930s and '40s, the artist's attention shifted progressively to sculpture. He used simple and "poor" terracotta, a material typical of his rural environment which was already common in the Seano area when the Etruscans settled and expressed their culture millenniums before. Terracotta was like the mud from which Martini had moulded animal figures as a child, playing in the farm yard. One terracotta sculpture was "la ragazza seanese", which was unveiled at the XIX Biennale di Venezia in 1934. From that moment on, Quinto Martini gained the appreciation of the critics and the public. From 1935 onward, Quinto Martini was present in all editions of the Quadriennale di Roma until the 1972–73 edition. At the 1939 edition, an entire salon was dedicated to his sculptures alone. In the same year, the artist published some of his etchings in the review Frontespizio which was gathering together the most relevant contemporary artists from Ottone Rosai to Giorgio Morandi, from Giacomo Manzù to Fiorenzo Tomea, and also important writers like Mario Luzi and Carlo Bo. Quinto Martini participated in the XXth Biennale di Venezia edition, where his work was appreciated by the important Italian critic Giuseppe Marchiori. The review Domus published an interview with him, and he was the protagonist of some exhibitions in Florence, Milan, and Rome at the "Quadriennale d'arte nazionale". In the same years, the artist will continue publishing drawings and etchings in the cultural reviews il Selvaggio, Frontespizio of the writer and politician Piero Bargellini, and in the art and literature review l'Orto from Bologna. The "Mendicanti" series, some of which were displayed at the "Lyceum" in Florence in 1943, were considered to be against the regime warlike propaganda. Quinto Martini was jailed shortly after the exhibition, together with Carlo Levi, in the same prison where his brother had been kept for almost fifteen years. Once released, the artist went into hiding in the Chianti countryside to avoid being captured by the Nazis. In that period he wrote the novel I giorni sono lunghi (The Days Are Long) to render that experience memorable,