XXXI, XXXII. Twelfth and Thirteenth Greek Rooms, together one hundred and thirty-five feet in length and twenty in breadth.—The exact position of the wall separating these rooms might be reserved till the arrangement of their contents was settled. In one might be architectural fragments, from buildings not represented in the large galleries; in the other, small tablets, votive offerings, altars, and other minor sculptures.
Fourteenth Greek Room.
XXXIII. Fourteenth Greek or Sepulchral Room, ninety-three feet by eighteen.—Here would be all the Greek sepulchral monuments now in the basement. The casts from the sculptured tomb at Myra, of which the style is more Greek than Lycian, might also be here placed, as indicated in the plan, in case it should be thought desirable to remove them from the Lycian Room, though the expediency of this transfer may perhaps be doubted. Wherever placed, these casts ought to be so put together as to explain the true arrangement of the originals.
[Then follows a Summary of the Accommodation provided in the Plan for Greek Sculptures, amounting to a superficial area of twenty-seven thousand four hundred and ten square feet, and to two thousand one hundred and ninety-one lineal feet of wall-space.]
Etruscan Room.
XXXIV. Etruscan Room.—The next parallel on the ground floor would be devoted to the monuments of ancient Italy. The earliest are the Etruscan, which, being altogether taken from tombs, would properly be placed adjacent, on the one side to the Greek, on the other to the Roman, sepulchral collections. The principal portion of the Etruscan Room would be fifty-five feet by forty, with additional recesses at the south end, the whole about twenty feet high. Two rows of pilasters would divide the room into three compartments, the central for the gangway, the other two to be fitted up as a series of tombs, of which the sides would be formed of the mural restorations, with fac-similes of paintings from Corneto and Vulci. Within these restored tombs would be such sarcophagi as we possess, found in the tombs themselves. The fac-similes of the painted roofs of two of the tombs might be fixed above them, at such a height as not to obstruct the light. In the central compartment, which contains six shallow recesses between the pilasters, might be monuments from various tombs other than those here restored.
XXXV. Staircase Room, forty feet by thirty, and of the same height as the three united stories of the western galleries.—Four successive flights of steps would be required to reach each floor. The landings between the first and second, and between the third and fourth flights, might each be supported by Caryatid or Atlantic figures, which would give the whole composition an ornamental effect, as seen from the east side. Beneath one side of this staircase might be a private one leading to the western basement.
To the north is another private staircase, conducting to the basement under the Greek galleries. The adjoining passage leads to—
First Græco-Roman Room.
XXXVI. First Græco-Roman Room.—The Etruscan monuments are succeeded chronologically by the Græco-Roman, here placed so as to adjoin the galleries both of Greek and of Roman art. In accordance with the character of Græco-Roman sculpture, the apartments containing it should be somewhat ornamentally constructed and arranged, as in the great continental museums, where works of this class form the staple of the collections. The position of the principal objects in all this series of rooms is marked in the plan, without distinguishing them individually, as none are of such a character as to require any special architectural provision. The first room is one hundred and six feet by twenty-six, exclusive of the alcoves. Its height need not, for the display of statuary, exceed twenty feet; but if, for architectural effect, a vaulted ceiling is preferred, the height must be increased. In the Braccio Nuovo, in the Vatican Museum, which is probably the finest gallery of this kind in Europe, and has a cylindrical vault, with a central skylight, the proportion of height to breadth is about thirty-seven feet to twenty-seven; but in the darker climate of London the height should not, if possible, exceed the breadth.