Nortia is the Latinized name of the Etruscan goddess Nurtia (variant manuscript readings include Norcia, Norsia, Nercia, and Nyrtia),[1] whose sphere of influence was time, fate, destiny, and chance.
[8] The 4th-century writer and consul Avienius, who was from Nortia's seat in Volsinii, addressed the goddess in a devotional inscription: Nortia, I venerate you, I who sprang from a Volsinian lar,[9] living now at Rome, boosted by the honor of a doubled term as proconsul, crafting many poems, leading a guilt-free life, sound for my age, happy with my marriage to Placida and jubilant about our serial fecundity in offspring.
At Bolsena, the most likely candidate for the new Volsinii, there is a ruin outside the Florence gate that is known locally as the Tempio di Norzia, but as George Dennis pointed out in the 19th century, no evidence other than the existence of the cult of Nortia supports this identification, and the architecture is Roman.
The Roman historian Livy took note of the ritual: Cincius, an industrious researcher of antiquarian matters, confirms that at Volsinii nails are in evidence at the temple of the Etruscan goddess Nortia, fixed to mark the number of years.
Versnel conjectured that the ritual of the nail was associated with the annual meeting of the Etruscan league, and that Nortia's consort could have been Voltumna, the counterpart of Roman Vortumnus.
The rite is analogous to, or a borrowed precedent for, a similar ritual at Rome originally held in the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter, near a statue of Minerva.
[18] In a poem addressing Fortuna and acknowledging her power over all, from the lowliest to the highest,[19] Horace pictures Necessity carrying nails large enough to drive into wooden beams, and wedges.