full-centred doorway which one sometimes meets in the tombs and upon urns. As for the windows we notice here the same lack of discipline, the same want of taste and originality. What particularly strikes one in all the details is the variety and the richness of the mouldings used on buildings of the last epoch. The Etruscans evidently borrowed from all the peoples of the East, whose passion for imitation they emulated, feeling the need of relieving the simplicity of their own lines by multiplying ornaments. They wrought their stone with the chisel and did not always stop at simple mouldings. Often they added figures to their decorations. On the pediment of a tomb at Sovana, for instance, there can be seen a marine divinity between two winged genii, and at Norchia the pediment of a façade conceived in the Greek style, in which were inserted figures. Polychromy, rather than sculpture, held a leading place in the decoration of the interior of the tombs. Almost all the funerary urns were painted, and the walls of certain tombs which belonged to personages of distinction were ornamented at Corneto and Orvieto, amongst other places, with paintings very skilfully executed. Finally, to end this portion of my study, I must say that terra-cotta work was also scattered with great profusion through Etruscan buildings.
Funerary architecture is that which had the most interest, from an artistic point of view, for the Etruscans. The chapters which M. Martha consecrates to this study are the most interesting, instructive and the most substantial in his hook. He remarks with much justice that the Etruscans fell into the same contradiction as the Greeks, who had the conception of a soul which separated from the body after death to flit away to another region, and who, nevertheless, worshipped the corpse to such a point as to believe that the man was always living in the ashes of his body. This is why they interred with him his familiar animals, his tools and toilet articles, his arms and food. Every year at a stated time they came to share a repast with him. The departed spirits were often represented upon the bas-reliefs or the paintings in Etruria. Like the Greeks, the Etruscans believed that the departed spirits did not remain in the tombs. On the contrary they assembled far from the bodies in mysterious regions. The designs which present to us the different conceptions which Etruscans had of death and resurrection turn about the ideas which I have just mentioned. Sometimes we see relatives mourning about the bed of a dying man; tears flow in abundance; gestures of despair are multiplied, and this scene has usually for its object to rejoice the manes of the defunct and flatter his posthumous vanity. Again the relative that they mourn is represented upon a triumphal car, as in the celebrated urn in the Museum of Volterra. On another urn in the same museum, we see a spirit on horseback drawn by Charon and followed by a relative, who gives evidence of the most poignant grief. It is natural, then, with a people who had so high a conception of death that funerary works should be conceived in the most exalted style which the artistic knowledge of the times allowed. And one may say, in short, that all the faculties of embellishment of which the Etruscans were capable were brought into operation for the benefit of their tombs. These tombs, according to the locality and epoch, took the most diverse forms. Sometimes they consist of a pit, at the bottom of which are arranged the cinerary urns, and sometimes they have some resemblance to the dolmen of France and England; that is to say, they were composed of four stones set upright and covered by a single stone. Sometimes, also, they were perched like swallows’ nests along the cliffs upon which the cities were built. They dug out, in full view half-way up these cliffs, niches destined to receive the urns or coffins. But the real Etruscan tomb, that which is most often met with, is that styled the cave tomb. It is very ancient, since at Corneto some have been found which date to the seventh century. These are of various dimensions. Generally it is very low in the stud, so low that a man of middle size can hardly stand upright. All the openings of the structures which have survived are, moreover, very low, and this has led to the conjecture that the Etruscans were for the most part of small size. Sometimes the caves followed one another and formed in some degree a complete apartment, and sometimes, also, several tombs dug in the thickness of the same hillock connected with one another by narrow and winding passages. Some of these tombs are decorated with a remarkable degree of luxury. About the cave there are benches of marble upon which were laid the coffins, and above the coffins were traced paintings which in certain tombs are of great sumptuousness. It would be impossible to give a complete enumeration of the objects which relatives deposited about the coffins. They are generally vases of clay or bronze, tripods, censers, articles of toilet, jewels, arms. Each dead man thus found, in the opinion of the survivors, the familiar articles of luxury and often his favorite games — there have been sometimes found dice and chessmen. The nature of the objects varies in their richness according to the age, the sex and the rank of the deceased. For external sign the Etruscan tombs often affected the form of tumuli. One detects them by the swellings of the ground. Then this manner of marking the place devoted to tombs was perfected, and they built at length square enclosures, towers, and finally veritable mausoleums. It can be said that the Etruscan tumulus varies from the simple hillock at Corneto, which is nothing more than a slight rise in the ground enclosed within a circular wall, up to the tomb of Porsenna at Chiusi, of which Varro has loft us the description, and which consisted of a square block of cut stone, each face measuring 300 feet in length by 50 in height. Above this enormous pedestal rose five pyramids, one at each corner and one in
the middle, each being 150 feet in height, and having a width of 75 feet at the base. This brought the total height of the monument to 125 metres. There still can be seen at Albano, near Rome, the remains of a monument built after this fashion, although of smaller dimensions, which local tradition attributes to Porsenna, who, apparently, must have died twice. Finally, I ought also to mention the practice which the Etruscans had of marking the presence of tombs by funeral cippi or stelæ, whose form had infinite variety. Some have been found spherical, pyramidal, oblong, polished, sculptured, and some often bore figures and inscriptions. In certain Etruscan cities are discovered so large a number of these stones that they have been used to decorate the walls and alleys of gardens, and strangers can easily procure them for a slight sum.
The military architecture of the Etruscans offers only a retrospective interest, and cannot furnish any instruction for modern military science. Thus one may affirm that the art of fortifying cities was fairly well-known throughout all Etruria. The surrounding walls were solidly built and arranged so as to serve as a rampart and platform for the defenders. More than once we find fortifications built after the polygonal system, or cut from distance to distance, as at Cosa, by quite high towers, which proves, moreover, that Etruscan cities were fortified in such a way as to resist advantageously all means of attack in use at that time; thus, some of them — among others Falerii, for instance, Volsinii and Veii — opposed to the Romans a vigorous resistence, and were only vanquished by strategy after a long siege.
As for works of canalization and diking, the Etruscans must have acquired a notable degree of perfection. In constructing the railroads over the Tuscan marshes, subterranean works of canalization have been discovered, which were executed by the Etruscans for the purpose of making salubrious this part of the country in which the climate is so deadly and where the fever to-day kills so many people yearly, for the simple reason that these works have fallen into disrepair. They reclaimed the mouths of the Po, which had become marshy in the progress of centuries, and straightened the mouth of the Arno. They also built, or fixed the rules for building, the outlet of Lago Albano, which pierces the mountain with a length of two kilometres. As for sewers, they understood them admirably. They dug issues in the tufa for the outlet of useless water, and to-day we still see these ditches on the hillsides where formerly were Etruscan cities, as at Orvieto for example. There is reason for believing that the famous Cuniculum which permitted Camillus to put an end in so marvellous a way to the siege of Veii was nothing more nor less than a sewer. According to tradition Fidenæ must have been twice taken by means of the same strategy. But in this kind of work the chefd’œuvre of Etruscan architecture is, surely, the Cloaca Maxima at Rome.
Although much has been written as to the religious architecture of the Etruscans, there are many points which still remain obscure. As it has been supposed that everything which the Romans knew in the art of construction they learned from the inhabitants of Etruria, students have set out from this point to discover in the Roman edifices the laws of Etruscan architecture, and this false idea has given rise to many misconceptions. As in the matter of the orientation of temples, for instance, people have been deceived. For a long time they believed that the Etruscan temples had a particular orientation. Now see, they have just uncovered the ruins of two sanctuaries at Orvieto (Volsinii) and at Civita Castellana (Falerii), and of these two sanctuaries the first had the façade turned to the south, while the other one faced to the southwest. M. Martha explains this difference in a plausible manner. The gods were thought to inhabit different points of the heavens, and the orientation varied, therefore, according to the god to whom the sanctuary was dedicated; but, after all, this is only a conjecture. In like way as to that which concerns the plan of the temple, opinions are not yet fixed. The opinion of Vitruvius, according to whom the form of the Etruscan temple ordinarily approached the square, is still believed in. As for the interior division, we do not know in a definite way how the Etruscans proceeded, and the best way is to suppose that they did not always arrange them in the same fashion, and that plans changed according to localities, according to the amount of money at the disposal of the builders, and probably, also, as M. Martha says, according to the divinity to whom the temple was consecrated. Indications which are drawn from sarcophagi and cinerary urns, where we see religious designs, are not sure guides, because these designs, often executed by foreign artists, may very easily reproduce religious edifices which have nothing to do with Etruria. The only thing which, unfortunately, is certain, is, as I have said, that no Etruscan building was built under such conditions of solidity and grandeur as to allow it to survive the centuries and the catastrophes of history.
As to private architecture, it is certain that the Etruscans did not take everything from the Greeks. The atrium, which the Romans borrowed from them, is their own invention. The atrium was the family hearth, the place of gathering, the reception-room, and about the atrium were arranged the other smaller rooms of the dwelling, whose number and size varied according to the social standing of the proprietors. When M. Martha wrote his book, the latest results of the excavations at Marzabotto were not yet known. These have thrown a great light upon the private dwelling of the Etruscans, and have made it possible to establish that the fundamental principles of municipal life and domestic architecture were taught by the
Funerary architecture is that which had the most interest, from an artistic point of view, for the Etruscans. The chapters which M. Martha consecrates to this study are the most interesting, instructive and the most substantial in his hook. He remarks with much justice that the Etruscans fell into the same contradiction as the Greeks, who had the conception of a soul which separated from the body after death to flit away to another region, and who, nevertheless, worshipped the corpse to such a point as to believe that the man was always living in the ashes of his body. This is why they interred with him his familiar animals, his tools and toilet articles, his arms and food. Every year at a stated time they came to share a repast with him. The departed spirits were often represented upon the bas-reliefs or the paintings in Etruria. Like the Greeks, the Etruscans believed that the departed spirits did not remain in the tombs. On the contrary they assembled far from the bodies in mysterious regions. The designs which present to us the different conceptions which Etruscans had of death and resurrection turn about the ideas which I have just mentioned. Sometimes we see relatives mourning about the bed of a dying man; tears flow in abundance; gestures of despair are multiplied, and this scene has usually for its object to rejoice the manes of the defunct and flatter his posthumous vanity. Again the relative that they mourn is represented upon a triumphal car, as in the celebrated urn in the Museum of Volterra. On another urn in the same museum, we see a spirit on horseback drawn by Charon and followed by a relative, who gives evidence of the most poignant grief. It is natural, then, with a people who had so high a conception of death that funerary works should be conceived in the most exalted style which the artistic knowledge of the times allowed. And one may say, in short, that all the faculties of embellishment of which the Etruscans were capable were brought into operation for the benefit of their tombs. These tombs, according to the locality and epoch, took the most diverse forms. Sometimes they consist of a pit, at the bottom of which are arranged the cinerary urns, and sometimes they have some resemblance to the dolmen of France and England; that is to say, they were composed of four stones set upright and covered by a single stone. Sometimes, also, they were perched like swallows’ nests along the cliffs upon which the cities were built. They dug out, in full view half-way up these cliffs, niches destined to receive the urns or coffins. But the real Etruscan tomb, that which is most often met with, is that styled the cave tomb. It is very ancient, since at Corneto some have been found which date to the seventh century. These are of various dimensions. Generally it is very low in the stud, so low that a man of middle size can hardly stand upright. All the openings of the structures which have survived are, moreover, very low, and this has led to the conjecture that the Etruscans were for the most part of small size. Sometimes the caves followed one another and formed in some degree a complete apartment, and sometimes, also, several tombs dug in the thickness of the same hillock connected with one another by narrow and winding passages. Some of these tombs are decorated with a remarkable degree of luxury. About the cave there are benches of marble upon which were laid the coffins, and above the coffins were traced paintings which in certain tombs are of great sumptuousness. It would be impossible to give a complete enumeration of the objects which relatives deposited about the coffins. They are generally vases of clay or bronze, tripods, censers, articles of toilet, jewels, arms. Each dead man thus found, in the opinion of the survivors, the familiar articles of luxury and often his favorite games — there have been sometimes found dice and chessmen. The nature of the objects varies in their richness according to the age, the sex and the rank of the deceased. For external sign the Etruscan tombs often affected the form of tumuli. One detects them by the swellings of the ground. Then this manner of marking the place devoted to tombs was perfected, and they built at length square enclosures, towers, and finally veritable mausoleums. It can be said that the Etruscan tumulus varies from the simple hillock at Corneto, which is nothing more than a slight rise in the ground enclosed within a circular wall, up to the tomb of Porsenna at Chiusi, of which Varro has loft us the description, and which consisted of a square block of cut stone, each face measuring 300 feet in length by 50 in height. Above this enormous pedestal rose five pyramids, one at each corner and one in
the middle, each being 150 feet in height, and having a width of 75 feet at the base. This brought the total height of the monument to 125 metres. There still can be seen at Albano, near Rome, the remains of a monument built after this fashion, although of smaller dimensions, which local tradition attributes to Porsenna, who, apparently, must have died twice. Finally, I ought also to mention the practice which the Etruscans had of marking the presence of tombs by funeral cippi or stelæ, whose form had infinite variety. Some have been found spherical, pyramidal, oblong, polished, sculptured, and some often bore figures and inscriptions. In certain Etruscan cities are discovered so large a number of these stones that they have been used to decorate the walls and alleys of gardens, and strangers can easily procure them for a slight sum.
The military architecture of the Etruscans offers only a retrospective interest, and cannot furnish any instruction for modern military science. Thus one may affirm that the art of fortifying cities was fairly well-known throughout all Etruria. The surrounding walls were solidly built and arranged so as to serve as a rampart and platform for the defenders. More than once we find fortifications built after the polygonal system, or cut from distance to distance, as at Cosa, by quite high towers, which proves, moreover, that Etruscan cities were fortified in such a way as to resist advantageously all means of attack in use at that time; thus, some of them — among others Falerii, for instance, Volsinii and Veii — opposed to the Romans a vigorous resistence, and were only vanquished by strategy after a long siege.
As for works of canalization and diking, the Etruscans must have acquired a notable degree of perfection. In constructing the railroads over the Tuscan marshes, subterranean works of canalization have been discovered, which were executed by the Etruscans for the purpose of making salubrious this part of the country in which the climate is so deadly and where the fever to-day kills so many people yearly, for the simple reason that these works have fallen into disrepair. They reclaimed the mouths of the Po, which had become marshy in the progress of centuries, and straightened the mouth of the Arno. They also built, or fixed the rules for building, the outlet of Lago Albano, which pierces the mountain with a length of two kilometres. As for sewers, they understood them admirably. They dug issues in the tufa for the outlet of useless water, and to-day we still see these ditches on the hillsides where formerly were Etruscan cities, as at Orvieto for example. There is reason for believing that the famous Cuniculum which permitted Camillus to put an end in so marvellous a way to the siege of Veii was nothing more nor less than a sewer. According to tradition Fidenæ must have been twice taken by means of the same strategy. But in this kind of work the chefd’œuvre of Etruscan architecture is, surely, the Cloaca Maxima at Rome.
Although much has been written as to the religious architecture of the Etruscans, there are many points which still remain obscure. As it has been supposed that everything which the Romans knew in the art of construction they learned from the inhabitants of Etruria, students have set out from this point to discover in the Roman edifices the laws of Etruscan architecture, and this false idea has given rise to many misconceptions. As in the matter of the orientation of temples, for instance, people have been deceived. For a long time they believed that the Etruscan temples had a particular orientation. Now see, they have just uncovered the ruins of two sanctuaries at Orvieto (Volsinii) and at Civita Castellana (Falerii), and of these two sanctuaries the first had the façade turned to the south, while the other one faced to the southwest. M. Martha explains this difference in a plausible manner. The gods were thought to inhabit different points of the heavens, and the orientation varied, therefore, according to the god to whom the sanctuary was dedicated; but, after all, this is only a conjecture. In like way as to that which concerns the plan of the temple, opinions are not yet fixed. The opinion of Vitruvius, according to whom the form of the Etruscan temple ordinarily approached the square, is still believed in. As for the interior division, we do not know in a definite way how the Etruscans proceeded, and the best way is to suppose that they did not always arrange them in the same fashion, and that plans changed according to localities, according to the amount of money at the disposal of the builders, and probably, also, as M. Martha says, according to the divinity to whom the temple was consecrated. Indications which are drawn from sarcophagi and cinerary urns, where we see religious designs, are not sure guides, because these designs, often executed by foreign artists, may very easily reproduce religious edifices which have nothing to do with Etruria. The only thing which, unfortunately, is certain, is, as I have said, that no Etruscan building was built under such conditions of solidity and grandeur as to allow it to survive the centuries and the catastrophes of history.
As to private architecture, it is certain that the Etruscans did not take everything from the Greeks. The atrium, which the Romans borrowed from them, is their own invention. The atrium was the family hearth, the place of gathering, the reception-room, and about the atrium were arranged the other smaller rooms of the dwelling, whose number and size varied according to the social standing of the proprietors. When M. Martha wrote his book, the latest results of the excavations at Marzabotto were not yet known. These have thrown a great light upon the private dwelling of the Etruscans, and have made it possible to establish that the fundamental principles of municipal life and domestic architecture were taught by the