Studies of Travel: ItalyFreeman, Edward A. (Edward Augustus)
History
Studies of Travel: Italy
Freeman, Edward A. (Edward Augustus)
Italy -- Description and travel
But if these works can teach us thus much when set in rows in a place
where they were never meant to be set up, how much more plainly do they
speak to us when we see them at home, untouched, in the place and in
the state in which the first artist set them! The Volumnian tomb near
Perugia is one of the sights which, when once seen, is not likely to
be forgotten. The caution does not bear on Etruscan art; but it is
well to walk to it from St. Peter's Abbey; going by the railway is a
roundabout business, and the walk downwards commands a glorious and
ever-shifting view over the plain and the mountains, with the towns
of Assisi, Spello, and a third further on--can it be distant Trevi?
Foligno lies down in the plain--each seated on its hill. The tomb is
reached; a small collection from other places has been formed on each
side of the door. This is all very well; but we doubt the wisdom of
putting, as we understood had been done, some things from other places
in the tomb itself. But this is not a moment at which we are inclined
to find fault. We rejoice at finding that what ought to be there is so
happily and wisely left in its place, and are not greatly disturbed
if a few things are put inside which had better have been left
outside. The stone doorway of the lintelled entrance--moved doubtless
only when another member of the house was literally gathered to his
fathers--stands by the side; it was too cumbrous to be kept in its old
place now that the tomb stands ready to be entered by all whose tastes
lead them that way. We go in; the mind goes back to ruder sepulchres
at Uleybury and New Grange, of sepulchres at least as highly finished
in their own way at Mykênê. But those were built, piled up of stones;
here the dwelling of the dead Lucumos is hewn in the native tufa.
The top is not, as we might have looked for, domical; it imitates the
forms of a wooden roof. From it still hang the lamps; on its surface
are carved the heads of the sun-god and of the ever-recurring Medusa.
Nor is the sun-god's own presence utterly shut out from the home of
the dead. It is a strange feeling when a burst of sunshine through the
open door kindles the eyes of the Gorgon with a strange brilliancy, and
lights up the innermost recess, almost as when the sinking rays light
up the apses of Rheims and of St. Mark's. In that innermost recess,
fronting us as we enter, lies on his _kistwaen_--may we transfer
the barbarian name to so delicate a work of art?--the father of the
household gathered around him. He is doubtless very far from being the
first _Felimna_, but the first Felimna whose ashes rest here. The name
of the family can be spelled out easily by those who, without boasting
any special Etruscan lore, are used to the oldest Greek writing from
right to left. Children and grandchildren are grouped around the
patriarch; and here comes what, from a strictly historical view, is the
most speaking thing in the whole tomb. The name of Avle Felimna can be
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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