This room has a selection of the most interesting Sarcophagi in the museum. The corridors outside, and the staircase also, are filled with other specimens of more or less interest.There is always a certain monotony in a collection of Etruscan tombs or sarcophagi, and the ordinary person wearies easily of the recumbent figures which lie so stolidly in effigy upon the lids of their own burial urns, with an expression of comfortable contentment on their somewhat unexciting and uneventful countenances. They seem, one and all of them, like persons who have fallen asleep on peaceful days with easy consciences,—persons whose hope of heaven is as slight as their fear of hell. They are, most of them, middle-aged, the pathos of old age, the hope and the passion of youth, is lacking in their faces. Their charm is to be sought in their extreme repose.There are several forms of tombs in the Perugian collection, that with the recumbent figures on the lid being probably the one used by the richer and more prosperous families. With few exceptions the work on the sarcophagi is rather coarse—a singular and persistent monotony of subject is displayed. The simpler forms have either a rose or a Medusa on theirfront panels, the more elaborate are ornamented with subjects from the Greek mythology, which seem to clash at times with the conventional figures on their lids. The story of Iphigenia is a favourite theme for the sarcophagi of women.On those of men, battles and boar-hunts figure largely, the labours of Hercules too, and fights with the Amazons. It is probable that these cases were kept in stock, and that when one was needed, the order was simply given to add a face, a portrait face of man or woman, to the figure, and sometimes an inscription. Most of the figures hold the familiarpateræin their hand, others clasp their long and heavy necklaces, some of them carry a flower—a lotus, maybe, or a rose.There was one quite different form of burial, when the whole body was preserved in a stone sarcophagus. Sometimes the corpse must have first undergone some kind of disintegration in the earth, as, in one or two cases, we find the bones gathered together in a small urn, into which the whole body could never have been pushed. At other times it was stretched full length in its long stone case. Infinitely pathetic is the figure of an Etruscan lady in the corridor. There she lies just as they found her, exposed to the most casual observer, with all the requisites for an exquisite toilet upon the resurrection morning: her hot-water can, herstrigil, her looking-glass, her pins, the money to pay her passage across the river to Eternity—nay, even the little metal weights she wore to keep her long straight skirts in order—all laid out carefully beside her, and nothing of the beauty left beyond her white and shining teeth.Faint traces of colour linger on some of these sarcophagi. Note No. 8. The hair of the Medusa is painted a delicate lilac hue, and the acanthus leaves which encircle it are blue like the sky in spring time.No. 23. An exception to the usual design of Greek mythology. The defence of a city—dare we say of Perugia—is here depicted. The men are fighting beneath the walls; and in the towers above, a row of valiant ladies are preparing to crush them with large and heavy stones.No. 30. These much smaller sarcophagi are made of terra cotta and come from Chiusi. In many of them the dead are represented in a new way; they have fallen asleep wrapped in long thin veils which cover the entire figure.
This room has a selection of the most interesting Sarcophagi in the museum. The corridors outside, and the staircase also, are filled with other specimens of more or less interest.
There is always a certain monotony in a collection of Etruscan tombs or sarcophagi, and the ordinary person wearies easily of the recumbent figures which lie so stolidly in effigy upon the lids of their own burial urns, with an expression of comfortable contentment on their somewhat unexciting and uneventful countenances. They seem, one and all of them, like persons who have fallen asleep on peaceful days with easy consciences,—persons whose hope of heaven is as slight as their fear of hell. They are, most of them, middle-aged, the pathos of old age, the hope and the passion of youth, is lacking in their faces. Their charm is to be sought in their extreme repose.
There are several forms of tombs in the Perugian collection, that with the recumbent figures on the lid being probably the one used by the richer and more prosperous families. With few exceptions the work on the sarcophagi is rather coarse—a singular and persistent monotony of subject is displayed. The simpler forms have either a rose or a Medusa on theirfront panels, the more elaborate are ornamented with subjects from the Greek mythology, which seem to clash at times with the conventional figures on their lids. The story of Iphigenia is a favourite theme for the sarcophagi of women.
On those of men, battles and boar-hunts figure largely, the labours of Hercules too, and fights with the Amazons. It is probable that these cases were kept in stock, and that when one was needed, the order was simply given to add a face, a portrait face of man or woman, to the figure, and sometimes an inscription. Most of the figures hold the familiarpateræin their hand, others clasp their long and heavy necklaces, some of them carry a flower—a lotus, maybe, or a rose.
There was one quite different form of burial, when the whole body was preserved in a stone sarcophagus. Sometimes the corpse must have first undergone some kind of disintegration in the earth, as, in one or two cases, we find the bones gathered together in a small urn, into which the whole body could never have been pushed. At other times it was stretched full length in its long stone case. Infinitely pathetic is the figure of an Etruscan lady in the corridor. There she lies just as they found her, exposed to the most casual observer, with all the requisites for an exquisite toilet upon the resurrection morning: her hot-water can, herstrigil, her looking-glass, her pins, the money to pay her passage across the river to Eternity—nay, even the little metal weights she wore to keep her long straight skirts in order—all laid out carefully beside her, and nothing of the beauty left beyond her white and shining teeth.
Faint traces of colour linger on some of these sarcophagi. Note No. 8. The hair of the Medusa is painted a delicate lilac hue, and the acanthus leaves which encircle it are blue like the sky in spring time.
No. 23. An exception to the usual design of Greek mythology. The defence of a city—dare we say of Perugia—is here depicted. The men are fighting beneath the walls; and in the towers above, a row of valiant ladies are preparing to crush them with large and heavy stones.
No. 30. These much smaller sarcophagi are made of terra cotta and come from Chiusi. In many of them the dead are represented in a new way; they have fallen asleep wrapped in long thin veils which cover the entire figure.
No. 9. Some good specimens of Etruscan helmets, one of them with flaps of iron to protect the ears of the warriors. We learn clearly in this room that the Etruscans wore elaborate armour—helmets, belts, greaves, and bronze and iron spear-heads being plentifully represented.
No. 9. Some good specimens of Etruscan helmets, one of them with flaps of iron to protect the ears of the warriors. We learn clearly in this room that the Etruscans wore elaborate armour—helmets, belts, greaves, and bronze and iron spear-heads being plentifully represented.
No. 31.Pempoboloorgraffio—an instrument used for stirring the bodies of the dead as they burned, and for raking in the ashes afterwards.No. 35.Cottabu.This strange looking implement was probably used for a kind of game practised at Etruscan feasts. It is supposed that at the end of a feast, when the guests grew merry, a toast was proposed, and that a glass was put on the tray at the top of the pole just under the little deity, and then carried round the room. The broader plate below was put to catch the wine as it fell with the swinging of this most ungainly instrument.
No. 31.Pempoboloorgraffio—an instrument used for stirring the bodies of the dead as they burned, and for raking in the ashes afterwards.
No. 35.Cottabu.This strange looking implement was probably used for a kind of game practised at Etruscan feasts. It is supposed that at the end of a feast, when the guests grew merry, a toast was proposed, and that a glass was put on the tray at the top of the pole just under the little deity, and then carried round the room. The broader plate below was put to catch the wine as it fell with the swinging of this most ungainly instrument.
Nos. 10 to 33, 40 to 60. A collection of small metal images, Lari, or household gods, most of them very Greek in treatment, some of them archaic.Nos. 34 to 40. A collection of lead missiles for slings. These are inscribed with words of the most marked abuse designed for the enemy. On one of them is written: (in Latin characters) “For thy right eye”—the sort of naïve thing a schoolboy might design.
Nos. 10 to 33, 40 to 60. A collection of small metal images, Lari, or household gods, most of them very Greek in treatment, some of them archaic.
Nos. 34 to 40. A collection of lead missiles for slings. These are inscribed with words of the most marked abuse designed for the enemy. On one of them is written: (in Latin characters) “For thy right eye”—the sort of naïve thing a schoolboy might design.
“As beautiful pottery like that of Vulci and Tarquinii is very rarely found at Perugia, it seems probable that it was not manufactured on the spot,” writes Dennis. And if one has seen the various other local Etruscan Museums in Italy, one will feel decidedly disappointed in the vase-room at Perugia. One or two interesting points may however be noted. It is strange to mark the difference between the two separate classes of vases, between the genuine Greek work, which the Etruscanshad the good taste to prize, and that of their own imitations of it. Note Nos. 3, 5, 14, all of which are probably Etruscan copies from real Greek vases. They are like the imitative sketches of children, lacking in understanding and in feeling, and pathetic in their clumsy failure. Nos. 7, 8, 10, and 12, are all specimens probably of real Greek work.No. 22. A fine terra-cotta vase—probably genuine Etruscan work—with four heads of Bacchus at the base.
“As beautiful pottery like that of Vulci and Tarquinii is very rarely found at Perugia, it seems probable that it was not manufactured on the spot,” writes Dennis. And if one has seen the various other local Etruscan Museums in Italy, one will feel decidedly disappointed in the vase-room at Perugia. One or two interesting points may however be noted. It is strange to mark the difference between the two separate classes of vases, between the genuine Greek work, which the Etruscanshad the good taste to prize, and that of their own imitations of it. Note Nos. 3, 5, 14, all of which are probably Etruscan copies from real Greek vases. They are like the imitative sketches of children, lacking in understanding and in feeling, and pathetic in their clumsy failure. Nos. 7, 8, 10, and 12, are all specimens probably of real Greek work.
No. 22. A fine terra-cotta vase—probably genuine Etruscan work—with four heads of Bacchus at the base.
The gems of the museum may be said to have been gathered together in this room, and the object which at once attracts one on entering is the large sarcophagus of an Etruscan gentleman and his evil genius, or Fate, which stands by the east window. Dennis has an admirable description of it: “An Etruscan of middle age,” he says, “is reclining in the usual costume and attitude of the banquet, with a bossed phiala in his left hand, and his right resting on his knee. At his feet squats a hideous old woman, stunted and deformed, whose wings show her to be a demon. She seizes one of his toes with her right hand and grasps his right wrist with her left. (Some authorities say she is feeling the pulse of the dying man.) She turns her head to look at him, yet he appears quite unconscious of her presence. She doubtless represents the Moira or Fate, whose touch deprives him of life. The monument is from Chiusi, and of the fetid limestone of that district. Both heads are moveable, and the bodies hollow, proving that this, which looks like the lid of a sarcophagus, is itself a cinerary urn.”No. 18. An Etruscan helmet of the finest work.No. 14. Two exquisite sarcophagi differing in every way from the one described above. So flowery is the work upon them that one scarcely realises to what dark ages they belong. The terra-cotta seems just baked, the paint is sticking to it. The griffins and sea horses, the portraits on the lids, all are most exquisitely treated.No. 12. The wonderful mirrors in this case have been admirably described by Dennis (see page 428). The one with the story of Helen engraved on it (No. 11) is quite one of the loveliest pieces of work ever discovered in the soil of Etruria.No. 3. A sarcophagus with the most delightful procession depicted upon its panels. There has been a good deal of discussion about the subject represented. Some say it is a migration, or a colony going forth to fulfil the vow of sacred spring;others that it is a procession going to a sacrifice. Dennis suggests another interpretation. “It seems to me,” he says, “much more satisfactory to suppose that it is a return from a successful foray. There are captives bound, and made to carry their own property for the benefit of their victors; their women behind, not bound, but accompanying their lords, their faithful dog following them into captivity, their beasts of burden laden with their gods; their weapons and agricultural implements carried by one of the guards and their cattle driven on by the rest.” The sacrifice is the most probable interpretation, for there is something solemn and sinister about the composition. Not only criminals but also human victims are being taken along by the fascinating but inexorable guards. The treatment of the figures is very archaic, and yet it is realistic. The long-eared goats, the horses and the mules step forward with an engaging regularity. Their shepherds or their leaders turn, as such people invariably do turn, to gesticulate and to explain among themselves upon the way. The two side panels represent banquet-scenes, banquets, we may imagine, which were given to commemorate whatever event the procession itself was leading to. The work on this Sarcophagus has been ascribed to the fifth century before Christ.No. 8. Under a glass shade, a strange little figure in bronze about 14 inches high, representing Hygiea, the Goddess of Health (daughter of Æsculapius) or, as some say, the Genius of Long Life. Smaller figure under same glass represents Telesphorus, the genius of convalescence, seated, entirely enveloped in a cloak.
The gems of the museum may be said to have been gathered together in this room, and the object which at once attracts one on entering is the large sarcophagus of an Etruscan gentleman and his evil genius, or Fate, which stands by the east window. Dennis has an admirable description of it: “An Etruscan of middle age,” he says, “is reclining in the usual costume and attitude of the banquet, with a bossed phiala in his left hand, and his right resting on his knee. At his feet squats a hideous old woman, stunted and deformed, whose wings show her to be a demon. She seizes one of his toes with her right hand and grasps his right wrist with her left. (Some authorities say she is feeling the pulse of the dying man.) She turns her head to look at him, yet he appears quite unconscious of her presence. She doubtless represents the Moira or Fate, whose touch deprives him of life. The monument is from Chiusi, and of the fetid limestone of that district. Both heads are moveable, and the bodies hollow, proving that this, which looks like the lid of a sarcophagus, is itself a cinerary urn.”
No. 18. An Etruscan helmet of the finest work.
No. 14. Two exquisite sarcophagi differing in every way from the one described above. So flowery is the work upon them that one scarcely realises to what dark ages they belong. The terra-cotta seems just baked, the paint is sticking to it. The griffins and sea horses, the portraits on the lids, all are most exquisitely treated.
No. 12. The wonderful mirrors in this case have been admirably described by Dennis (see page 428). The one with the story of Helen engraved on it (No. 11) is quite one of the loveliest pieces of work ever discovered in the soil of Etruria.
No. 3. A sarcophagus with the most delightful procession depicted upon its panels. There has been a good deal of discussion about the subject represented. Some say it is a migration, or a colony going forth to fulfil the vow of sacred spring;others that it is a procession going to a sacrifice. Dennis suggests another interpretation. “It seems to me,” he says, “much more satisfactory to suppose that it is a return from a successful foray. There are captives bound, and made to carry their own property for the benefit of their victors; their women behind, not bound, but accompanying their lords, their faithful dog following them into captivity, their beasts of burden laden with their gods; their weapons and agricultural implements carried by one of the guards and their cattle driven on by the rest.” The sacrifice is the most probable interpretation, for there is something solemn and sinister about the composition. Not only criminals but also human victims are being taken along by the fascinating but inexorable guards. The treatment of the figures is very archaic, and yet it is realistic. The long-eared goats, the horses and the mules step forward with an engaging regularity. Their shepherds or their leaders turn, as such people invariably do turn, to gesticulate and to explain among themselves upon the way. The two side panels represent banquet-scenes, banquets, we may imagine, which were given to commemorate whatever event the procession itself was leading to. The work on this Sarcophagus has been ascribed to the fifth century before Christ.
No. 8. Under a glass shade, a strange little figure in bronze about 14 inches high, representing Hygiea, the Goddess of Health (daughter of Æsculapius) or, as some say, the Genius of Long Life. Smaller figure under same glass represents Telesphorus, the genius of convalescence, seated, entirely enveloped in a cloak.
has a rather miscellaneous collection of later Roman and Etruscan work, also some objects from Cyprus.No. 36. A little tomb where the door is left half open, the key hung up upon a peg, perhaps to show that the spirit is free to wander in and out.
has a rather miscellaneous collection of later Roman and Etruscan work, also some objects from Cyprus.
No. 36. A little tomb where the door is left half open, the key hung up upon a peg, perhaps to show that the spirit is free to wander in and out.
contain the private collection of Count Guadabassi collected by him throughout a life-time and from very different places, and left to the town at his death with the request that their original arrangement should be preserved. Thus the impression of the whole is somewhat distracting to a student. One of the greatest treasures of the Museum is in
contain the private collection of Count Guadabassi collected by him throughout a life-time and from very different places, and left to the town at his death with the request that their original arrangement should be preserved. Thus the impression of the whole is somewhat distracting to a student. One of the greatest treasures of the Museum is in
A very beautiful Etruscan mirror with Bacchus, or a Bacchante, riding on a panther upon the cover. Two good mirrors in the same case, and a fine Etruscan gold ornament, with figures delicately traced upon it.
A very beautiful Etruscan mirror with Bacchus, or a Bacchante, riding on a panther upon the cover. Two good mirrors in the same case, and a fine Etruscan gold ornament, with figures delicately traced upon it.
ETRUSCAN MIRROR IN GUADABASSI COLLECTIONETRUSCAN MIRROR IN GUADABASSI COLLECTION
To the right of the door, a white marbleoscillumor slab, with the figure of Archimenes on one side, and on the other the portrait of a juggler taming snakes. This was probably put up outside the house or booth of a juggler, and served as his sign.
To the right of the door, a white marbleoscillumor slab, with the figure of Archimenes on one side, and on the other the portrait of a juggler taming snakes. This was probably put up outside the house or booth of a juggler, and served as his sign.
Some good bits of Etruscan jewellery. One necklace with a large bit of glass like an opal, set in gold and precious stones;also some very delicate Etruscan earrings, with golden nets of filagree on a gold ground.
Some good bits of Etruscan jewellery. One necklace with a large bit of glass like an opal, set in gold and precious stones;also some very delicate Etruscan earrings, with golden nets of filagree on a gold ground.
Some specimens of Etruscan money. The pieces were valued according to their weight, and form seemed quite a secondary consideration.
Some specimens of Etruscan money. The pieces were valued according to their weight, and form seemed quite a secondary consideration.
A collection ofstrigils, or brass scrapers, to be used after the bath. Some of these were evidently used as ornaments (hung from an elegant bracelet or ring), which leads one to imagine that the bath was a rarity with the Etruscans, and thestrigilan object of luxury and decoration rather than of frequent use.
A collection ofstrigils, or brass scrapers, to be used after the bath. Some of these were evidently used as ornaments (hung from an elegant bracelet or ring), which leads one to imagine that the bath was a rarity with the Etruscans, and thestrigilan object of luxury and decoration rather than of frequent use.
A fine collection of gems. A little tomb, with pent-roof and tiles in the shape of violet leaves (unnumbered).The following rooms of the museum, from Room X., contain various mediæval and renaissance works. The only point we would mention here is the case which holds the bones of the mighty man of Perugia: Braccio Fortebraccio di Montone.There they lie, bare and grim before us. Poor bones, insulted by a Pope, buried and then unburied, and now laid out for any man to look at! There is a note of pathos in the sight, which the inscription does not lessen.
A fine collection of gems. A little tomb, with pent-roof and tiles in the shape of violet leaves (unnumbered).
The following rooms of the museum, from Room X., contain various mediæval and renaissance works. The only point we would mention here is the case which holds the bones of the mighty man of Perugia: Braccio Fortebraccio di Montone.
There they lie, bare and grim before us. Poor bones, insulted by a Pope, buried and then unburied, and now laid out for any man to look at! There is a note of pathos in the sight, which the inscription does not lessen.
Perusiæ natum Montonium me exulem excepit.Mars patriam Umbriam et Capuam mihi subegit.Roma paruit Italia theatrum spectator orbis fuit.At Aquila cadentem risit quem patria lugens brevi hac urna tegit.Eheu! Mars extulit, Mors substulit.Abi.
Perusiæ natum Montonium me exulem excepit.Mars patriam Umbriam et Capuam mihi subegit.Roma paruit Italia theatrum spectator orbis fuit.At Aquila cadentem risit quem patria lugens brevi hac urna tegit.Eheu! Mars extulit, Mors substulit.Abi.
Perusiæ natum Montonium me exulem excepit.Mars patriam Umbriam et Capuam mihi subegit.Roma paruit Italia theatrum spectator orbis fuit.At Aquila cadentem risit quem patria lugens brevi hac urna tegit.Eheu! Mars extulit, Mors substulit.Abi.
A portrait of Braccio hangs above his coffin—a strong pugnacious countenance, differing quite from his other portrait in the Confraternità di San Francesco. On the opposite wall is a picture of Niccolò Piccinino.
A portrait of Braccio hangs above his coffin—a strong pugnacious countenance, differing quite from his other portrait in the Confraternità di San Francesco. On the opposite wall is a picture of Niccolò Piccinino.
To close these notes on the museum we would mention another private museum in Perugia full of extraordinary interest; that of Professore Giuseppe Bellucci, in the Via Cavour.
Prof. Bellucci has made a special study of the people who preceded the Etruscans in Umbria, and, after years of careful search and indefatigable energy, has accumulated a grand collection of objects belonging to the stone age, and to the earliest settlers on the hills. Arrow heads, battleaxes from Trasimene, pottery and ornaments of infinite variety, are carefully stored and arranged in the top rooms of one of the most charming of the old Perugian palaces; also a surprising collection of amulets against witches and the evil eye, of which Prof. Bellucci has made a special study. This museum can be visited by anyone who is interested in the subject, and its owner is always willing to show it.[107]
About three miles from Perugia, down at the foot of one of the last hills which fall into the valley of the Tiber, a mysterious necropolis ofPerusia Etruscawas discovered many years ago on the property of Count Baglioni. It was a big necropolis full of innumerable urns of more or less artistic interest, and the land about the hill seemed honeycombed with small vaults holding their respective sarcophagi and ashes.
Some time later—so tradition tells us—whilst a peasant was driving his oxen over a field in this same place one of the oxen fell forward. When the man came up to see what had happened, he found that the creature hadstumbled through the stones of a great arch which covered a hitherto unsuspected subterranean passage.[108]
When the hole thus made was examined it was found to be in truth a steep staircase cut in the tufa and covered over by a travertine vaulting. It led steeply down to a huge door of travertine, and when this was opened, the wonderful tomb, belonging to the private family of the Volumnii, was disclosed. Unfortunately the ox was not the first person to open up this extraordinary place. The earth and dust of centuries had, it is true, fallen in upon it, but in the Roman times it had been already ransacked for its possible treasures. Beautiful and extraordinary as the place is, haunted by the silent grandeur and mystery of the dead, it is not quite complete, and many of the urns are missing in its first compartments. Still, as Dennis says, “it is one of the most remarkable in Etruria.... To enter the tomb,” he continues was to him “like enchantment, not reality, or rather it was the realization of the pictures of subterranean palaces and spell-bound men, which youthful fancy had drawn from the Arabian Nights, but which had long been cast aside into the lumber room of the memory, now to be suddenly restored.... The impressions received in this tomb first directed my attention to the antiquities of Etruria,” Dennis adds, and many people will echo his words.
Leaving the dust and the sunlight, the green trees and the sunny banks of the outside Umbrian world, we plunge down a narrow staircase and through thetall doorway of travertine into the darkness of the Etruscan sepulchre, and find ourselves in a dim, low vestibule with stone seats round it, small chambers branching off to right and left, and one large chamber at the end. Strange and fascinating heads look down upon us from the ceiling, marvellous little deities, suspended by many leaden chains, hang silent, as though they dreamed, above our heads. Weird serpents’ heads pierce through the walls and seem to hiss at us; and in the dim light of the candles we realize a whole new world of wonderful and deep set imagery, combining with that solid sense of comfortable respectability peculiar to the race of men who lie here.
The tomb of the Volumnii has a strong and a convincing individuality. In this fact consists its charm. The necropolis was built for one family. The clear cut inscription on the door post at the entrance points to this, the name repeated again and again upon the tomb proves it yet more forcibly.[109]
To get a first and full impression of the place it is well to sit down on one of the low stone seats whichrun round the walls of the vestibule. These benches were probably used by members of the family in the peculiar fashion of the Etruscans. We hear that in order to bring themselves nearer to the dead and to communicate with the Spirit of Death, they would come to the sepulchres at night-fall and sleep beside the urns of their dead friends—their brothers, wives, their children or their lovers—and there receive visions from the souls which always hovered near the place where the body was buried. Members of the Volumnii family who were courageous enough, or peaceful enough in their own souls to do this thing, must have received strong and convincing visions from surroundings so unearthly and mysterious.
A great round disk, the sun probably, guards the entrance door of the vestibule. It seems to rise up out of the sea; two dolphins plunge head foremost into the waves beneath it; and under these, above the left lintel of the door, a great wing stretches, one knows not whence or whither, into the darkness all around it.
On the opposite wall, and guarding the tomb, is another great disk covered with scales, or as some say laurel leaves, and a splendid head in its centre. The face is grandly moulded and belongs to the best period of Etruscan art, when the souls of the artists were probably steeped in the art of Greece. The expression is calm, pure, and full of strength. It is probably meant to represent the God Numa, though some imagine it to be Apollo himself. Below it are two busts which are supposed to be portraits of Apollo in his two qualities of shepherd and of poet; and guarding the disk, two great scimitars with birds perched over them. (It is imagined that the Etruscans shared the Greek belief about birds sympathising in the death of mortals. The flight and ways of birds, certainly formed a large part of their religion, but in this casenothing can be actually proved). Vermiglioli having studied various other points in the necropolis, suggests that the Volumnii were a race of warriors and that the scimitars were a symbol of their warlike ways.
Passing through this second doorway one stands in the actual presence of some members of the family of the Volumnii. There they sit together on their beautiful stuccoed urns: “each on a snow-white couch” says Dennis, “with garlanded brow, torque-decorated neck, and goblet in hand—a petrifaction of conviviality—in solemn mockery of the pleasures to which for ages on ages they have bidden adieu.”[110]
They are surprisingly real, this family, and they sit there now, just exactly as they were sitting two thousand years or more ago.[111]The figures and the sarcophagi are made of terra-cotta covered by a dead white stucco which gives them a singularly modern look. Each sarcophagus has the head of a Medusa on it, but of a marvellously fair Medusa, a creature to adore, a woman to attract, a creature incapable of inspiring aught save admiration.[112]
The sarcophagus in the centre of the group appears to have belonged to Aruns Volumnius the head of the family. It is the most heavily decorated of the set. Aruns lies on a well-draped couch. Two mysterious figures—Furies, but attractive Furies—guard his urn. They are a splendid piece of work, and have naturally enough been compared with the work of Michelangelo; there is something muscular about them, and their pose
TOMB OF ARUNS VOLUMNIUSTOMB OF ARUNS VOLUMNIUS
is tragic, like that which the sculptor of the Renaissance delighted to give to his figures. Unfortunately the fresco, which was perfect when the tomb was opened, has fallen to bits in the damp air which enters through the open door. To Aruns’ left his daughter sits on her urn, to his right his son, and next to his son the beautiful young wife Veilia, or Velia. One could write a romance about Veilia. The beauty of her profile haunts one like a dream. Was she an Etruscanor some woodland creature? Surely the dull and conventional gentleman to whom she was early married bored her into a decline? Certain it is that she died young, and that the sculptor who made this portrait of her, loved and understood the beauty of her human face, and drew it in as faithfully as he had drawn the dull one of her husband and his family. All the other portraits have the usual respectable Etruscan stamp upon them. Veilia alone has a touch of the divine.
One beautiful little sarcophagus in the group differs from all around it. It is exquisite in all its detail and built in the form of a temple with doors and Corinthian columns, pent roof, and exquisite tracery upon its walls. (The inscriptions upon it are written both in Roman and Etruscan characters; but although this sounds like a delightful dictionary they do not appear to coincide.) Four exquisite sphinxes and a little frieze of lions’ heads guard the roof; heavy garlands of fruit and flowers hang from the skulls of oxen on the panels; and birds and butterflies—symbols of the immortality of the human soul—are marvellously carved about them.
The remaining cells have each some beautiful and interesting thing in them, but the main historical interest is passed after the chambers of the Volumnii urns; and the most beautiful things to note are the heads of the Gorgons or Medusas carved in the tufa of the ceilings. Some say that these heads are portraits of the family. Their eyes and teeth are painted white. They seem to stare at one with calm kind eyes which have looked into the centuries and realised the futility of human things.
To the present writers the Medusa of the Etruscanpeople is its greatest and its most attractive study. She is always grand, beautiful and mysterious; the material and conventional aspects of the Etruscan race vanish and fly before her steady gaze, and in the Volumnian tomb she reigns supreme.
L’Apennin est franchi, et les collines modérées, les riches plaines bien encadrées commencent à se déployer et à s’ordonner comme sur l’autre versant. Cà et là une ville en tas sur une montagne, sorte de môle arrendi, est un ornement du paysage, comme on en trouve dans les tableaux de Poussin et de Claude. C’est l’Apennin, avec ses bandes de contre-forts allongés dans une péninsule étroite, qui donne à tout le paysage italien son caracterè; point de longs fleuves ni de grandes plaines: des valleés limitées, de nobles formes, beaucoup de roc et beaucoup de soleil, les aliments et les sensations correspondantes; combien de traits de l’individu et de l’histoire imprimés par ce caractère!H. Taine,Voyage en Italie.
L’Apennin est franchi, et les collines modérées, les riches plaines bien encadrées commencent à se déployer et à s’ordonner comme sur l’autre versant. Cà et là une ville en tas sur une montagne, sorte de môle arrendi, est un ornement du paysage, comme on en trouve dans les tableaux de Poussin et de Claude. C’est l’Apennin, avec ses bandes de contre-forts allongés dans une péninsule étroite, qui donne à tout le paysage italien son caracterè; point de longs fleuves ni de grandes plaines: des valleés limitées, de nobles formes, beaucoup de roc et beaucoup de soleil, les aliments et les sensations correspondantes; combien de traits de l’individu et de l’histoire imprimés par ce caractère!
H. Taine,Voyage en Italie.
WE cannot study the history of a single town without acquiring a certain knowledge of the towns around it, for the character of one set of people was formed and influenced by that of another, and the land on which cities are built is often in itself an explanation of their past. In no country perhaps are these facts more strongly marked than in Umbria, where even the smallest hamlet is perched upon a high hill-side as though to provoke attention, and where the larger cities glare at each other from commanding eminences, seeming, even in this peaceful nineteenth century, to challenge one another by the mere aspect of their mighty walls.
We cannot stay long in Perugia without getting its surrounding landscape stamped upon our minds. That circle of small cities so distinctly seen: Assisi,Spello, Foligno to the east, Montefalco, Trevi, Bettona, and Torgiano to the south, and Città della Pieve westwards, all of them perched upon their separate hill-top around the bed of the now vanished lake (see chapter i.), excite one’s fancy and one’s longing, at first perhaps unconsciously, and later with an irresistible persistence. Finally we are driven to pack our trunks and wander out amongst them.
From a practical point of view, travelling in Umbria, even in its most remote villages, is made extremely easy. The inhabitants are friendly and courteous, and utterly unspoiled by tourists. The inns are clean, the main roads excellent; prices reasonable, and carriages, with few exceptions, good. From a romantic or artistic point of view, nothing can excel the charm of such travelling. We are weary of hearing the stated fact that every town in Italy is worth the visiting; but, however hackneyed the remark, we must make it once again in the case of the towns around Perugia. Each has an individual charm, a long and carefully recorded history. We exclude Assisi, for that town is a study in itself, a thing above and apart. Assisi may be called the Jerusalem of Italy; its connection with one of the greatest Saints of the Catholic world has made its churches monuments of art and history, a centre for pilgrims and for painters throughout a period of nearly seven hundred years; and quite apart from its history as a town (the walls of Assisi date back to 400B.C.) this presence or possession of the saints has excited a whole literature of art and of devotion.
But besides the towns we have mentioned above, there are a host of other cities very near: Gubbio, Arezzo, Città di Castello, Terni, Spoleto, Narni, Orvieto, Chiusi, Cortona and many others less orbetter known. It is the diversity and contrast of these towns which charms one, but space forbids that we should offer anything beyond a few small travelling notes concerning one or two of them.
The road to Gubbio from Perugia leads over a mountain pass as wild, and as forbidding in its aspect, as that of any in the Alps. Leaving the broad and wooded valley of the Tiber it winds in long fantastic wind-swept curves across the spines of the lower Apennines, then plunges somewhat suddenly down into the smiling fields and oak woods of the valley under Gubbio. The position of the town is most remarkable. It looks out on a smiling peaceful valley, but is backed by a terrific mountain gorge which would serve as an iron breastplate in the time of siege. Gubbio is a small brown-coloured town, compact and perfect in its parts; it has never changed since the middle ages. A fine Roman theatre, a mysterious Roman mausoleum, fallen asleep on the cornfields outside the city walls, tell of her early prime, but the character of the place, as we see it now, is purely mediæval. The people themselves have the spirit of their ancestors; the worship, which is almost like a fetish worship, of their patron Saint Ubaldo is as passionate in its intensity to-day as it was seven hundred years ago, when Barbarossa threatened to destroy the town.[113]There isscarcely a single new building in Gubbio. The great weaving-looms in the piazza are a relic of the city’s commerce in the Middle Ages, and the exquisite line of the palace of her rulers, Palazzo dei Consoli, with the slim bell tower soaring up against the barren outline of the gorge, lives in one’s memory long after many other points of Umbrian cities are forgotten.
Gubbio’s bell tower and Gubbio’s Madonna are points which we remember with delight. Almost every Umbrian city has its local painter. Nelli is the painter of Gubbio and the gem of all his works has been left on the actual wall for which it first was painted. It was icy wintry weather, although the month was May, when we arrived at Gubbio, but in the fields all round it the flax shone grey and blue like a lagune. Had Nelli seen such flax fields when he painted his Madonna’s and his angels’ gowns? The stuffs he gave them were as blue, as pure, as all these flowers put together.[114]
Early one morning we left Perugia and passed along the plain to Spello. We found it in a halo of May sunlight. There was nothing grim or forbidding, nothing Etruscan about the smiling little town; the sunlight and the air crept into the heart of its streets and seemed to linger there. Yet these were narrow and steep and made for war and not for peace or comfort, just like the streets of Perugia. Their character indeed is so purely mediæval and untouched, that the chains which guarded them at nightfall are even left hanging in one place to the walls.
Right away from the town amongst the olive trees we came to the convent of S. Girolamo. There in the back of the choir is the little fresco of the Marriage of the Virgin by Pinturicchio—faint in colour and fragile in outline, but charming in its composition.
Pinturicchio is the painter of Spello; there is much of his work in the churches. He came there to paint for Troilo, one of the Baglioni, lords of Spello. Hence he was called to Siena to do his well-known series of frescoes for the Piccolomini. A whole chapel in S. Maria Maggiore is covered with his works, and he has put his own portrait amongst them with a string of beads, a brush and palette hanging from it. The artist’s face is thin and melancholy, but the frescoes round it are large in line and treatment and some of the best specimens of his religious work. There they stand mouldering mysteriously in the dim light of the little old church for which this master made them four hundred years ago. We lingered long before them, then passed back into the sunlit street and drove away through the gate of the town with the Roman senatorsabove it and out across the hot dry plain to the city of Foligno.[115]
Sunk, as it were, in a broad basin of plain, through which the quiet waters of Clitumnus drain slowly to the Tiber, is the city of Foligno—that city which Perugia so detested, so offended in the past. The town has all the character of the towns of the plain. Driving through its straight and even streets we felt as though we were in Lombardy, in Padua or Ferrara. There were Lombard lions in the porch and Lombard beasts around the arch of the Duomo. The houses were all shut up, square, silent, cool, preparing, as it seemed, for summer heat and dust, and infinite hours of afternoon. The place was flat and drowsy, but we liked it and studied in its churches with delight.
Niccolò Alunno is the painter of Foligno. Some of his work is scattered through the churches, and more is gathered together in the small Pinacoteca together with that of other early Umbrian masters. Very gold and brown the frescoes seemed, very sober and religious in their sentiment. Here one could study the Umbrian school, apart from the Peruginesque, and it struck us that the art of the first Umbrian painters was a natural, and (if one may say so in this age of critics) an inspired one, which sprang straight up from the soil about the feet of the painters, and was only influencedat certain purely decorative points by the teaching of the Florentines. The angels were the Umbrian children, well groomed, well fed, and wholly unaffected. Neither Paganism nor Christianity had very much to do with them. When Perugino’s ripened influence came in, they weakened as garden flowers weaken, in their power of appeal through pure simplicity. The first faces of Umbrian saints and angels were simple like the Umbrian dog-rose. Perugino turned them into garden roses. Both in their way were fair, but the former flowers seemed nearer the divine than those which had been trained and cultivated.
It is not possible to mention here all the pictures of Foligno. There are two fine Alunnos in S. Niccolò; and a rather surprising Mantegna with the colour of brown wine—colour of passion and pain, which clashes with the Perugino just beside it—on the chapel of the Nunziatella. The Palazzo Communale is covered with the work of Nelli, but one feels that the painter who so loved what was gay and rich and beautiful (see his picture at Gubbio) wanted a lot more gold and ultramarine than his patron allowed him when painting the ceiling of this chapel.
Before leaving Foligno we went into the church of S. Maria infra Portas. It is so old, this little low basilica, that it has sunk quite deep into the soil around it. Inside are many faded frescoes, brown and gold, and full of almost painful early sentiment. As we stood among them in the dusk, a blackbird poured a flood of freshest song in through the door from the light of the courtyard. “How your bird sings!” we said to the custode. “Yes,” said the man; “he sings all day; but whether for love or rage I cannot tell.” ... And it struck us that no Umbrian of a hill town, or no Perugian anyway, would have made this profoundly melancholy statement about a tame bird’s song.
The road from Foligno to Montefalco leads all along the flat at first, through the peaceful vale of the Clitumnus. Sometimes we crossed the water and saw the reeds and rushes growing, and felt the cool fresh breath of the enchanted stream. Then passing under a mediæval watch-tower we left the flat land and began the steep ascent to Montefalco.
The town stands on a hill in the very heart of Umbria, and hence it is called by the people theringhiera d’Umbria. We saw it “on a day of many days,” and it struck us that this was the site of the city of our dreams—the best, the fairest we had ever met in travel. The sun was low as we drove through the gates. Far below us and around us stretched the Umbrian landscape, the bed of the old Umbrian lake: long green waves of blue and green, seething in the heated air of the May afternoon.[117]
The town felt very quiet and deserted. The grass grew everywhere through the stones of its piazza. In silence the children played, in silence the women sat at their doors, the place had fallen asleep. But once the city knew prosperity, and many painters climbed the steep roads from the plain below, and came to Montefalco to leave some impress of their art upon the walls of chapels and of churches. Hither came Benozzo Gozzoli in 1449, and here he painted many of his early frescoes. What brought thesplendid Florentine to the tiny town we wondered? He came in the very prime of his youth, and they say that he did so, simply because he was connected with the Dominicans of the place. Certainly he settled here for seven years or so, did good work, and spread the influence of Florence throughout the minds of the rising Umbrian masters. Benozzo’s early work at Montefalco is fresh, raw, naïve. It lacks the finish and the gilded ornaments of the Riccardi chapel, but in exchange it holds a certain simple and religious sentiment which is lacking in his later frescoes. The best of his paintings are in the church of S. Francesco,[118]and there are several other good pictures of the Umbrian painters here—a fine Tiberio d’Assisi and some things by Melanzio. In one of the latter, a portrait of the painter by himself—a tall, slim youth with long light hair and earnest face full of quiet thought and strength. Melanzio is the painter of Montefalco, and luckily his work is well preserved in many of the churches. The little frieze of angels playing with carnations above the left hand altar as one enters the church of the Illuminata, is one of the most fascinating bits of detail that we have ever seen.
Before leaving Montefalco we drove out to the convent of S. Fortunato, which lies to the east of the town. There were pictures there—of these we remember little; but the lanes which led to the convent we never shall forget. They were warm deep lanes and the hedges above were full of dog-roses and honeysuckle, the light inside was green and blue like the landscape down upon the plain. The lanes of Montefalco were as beautifula vision as we have ever seen. Like the frescoes of Melanzio they had the colour of a tropic butterfly, and like the flight of butterflies they hover in our memory.
In the very height of the midday we left Foligno and took the road to Spoleto. It is a fine broad road, passing along the site of the old Flaminian Way, grand, dusty, white, with a feeling that Rome is at the end of it, and Umbria but a little land to be passed quickly by. As we trundled along in our clumsy landau dragged by a pair of miserable horses, we thought of all the popes, the emperors and legions, who, going south or northwards, had passed in this direction. The dust flew up and almost choked us; it was the week of the wild roses, and the hedges were all aglow with their delicious blossoms, their petals bent wide back as though to catch the very essence of the sunlight on their golden stamens. We left the main road a little below Trevi, and driving through fields and oak woods, passed up the hills by a steep short cut which leads to the town above. This road cannot be recommended to travellers unless they go on foot; our poor little city horses struggled painfully over the sand and pebbles of the numerous streams it crosses. But what a stretch of country for the artist! Everywhere the poppies were in flower—a shimmer of pure cadmiums and carmines under the oaks and the olives. After about an hour’s climb we came out suddenly on the broad bastions of the road which runs from Trevi to the convent of S. Martino.
The tiny town of Trevi is a familiar object to all who pass along the line to Rome. It stands, as one expectsall Umbrian towns to stand, a crown of buildings closely packed upon a little hill-top. The city felt bare and baked when we entered it, and we left it soon to wander round its bastion-road; a thing which was fairer far than all the pictures in the churches.[119]Long we sat in the grasses, tracing out the landmarks in the heat mist far below us: Montefalco in the foreground, Perugia behind it, Assisi and Spello a little to the right, and, sunk in the broad plain of the Clitumnus, just as Raphael painted them four hundred years ago, the houses and the towers of Foligno.
“Hinc albi, Clitumne, greges, et maxima taurusVictima, saepe tuo perfusi flumine sacro,Romanos ad templa Deum duxere triumphos.”Georg. ii. 146.
“Hinc albi, Clitumne, greges, et maxima taurusVictima, saepe tuo perfusi flumine sacro,Romanos ad templa Deum duxere triumphos.”Georg. ii. 146.
“Hinc albi, Clitumne, greges, et maxima taurusVictima, saepe tuo perfusi flumine sacro,Romanos ad templa Deum duxere triumphos.”Georg. ii. 146.
Barely three miles from Trevi, just off the dusty road, in the burning heat of a brewing storm, we came to the Temple of Clitumnus. This marvellously romantic spot needs no description of ours, for the tiny temple seems to hold the very essence of what is best in pagan art and worship, and its praises have been sung by classic poets throughout the course of centuries.[120]
THE TEMPLE OF CLITUMNUSTHE TEMPLE OF CLITUMNUS
With the following stanzas passing through one’s mind, one may linger very long and pleasantly down by the water’s edge, and dragging one’s hands in the cool stream, and looking towards the temple up above, dream golden dreams of river gods and hamadryads as well as of “milk white steer.”