One of the chief features of the Etruscan or primitive Italian dwelling-house, the inner court, has already been mentioned in the consideration of the tombs. As in Hellenic architecture, so here this formed the central point, the chief space of the dwelling, around which were grouped the ceiled chambers, subordinate in dimensions and in importance. As the court was intended to be the chief gathering-place, a partial covering could not have sufficed in these northern Apennines, as did the Grecian peristyle; for continued rain, snow, and piercing winter frost were not so rare here as in the lands upon the Kephissos and Meander. The central aperture was diminished, and the effect of storms or cold more completely excluded. The Italian atrium, or cavædium, acquired thus a form essentially different from the Grecian court. If the aperture open to the sky were reduced to a small orifice for light and air, only large enough to carry off the smoke from the hearth and provide sufficient illumination, columnar supports would not be needed, the rafters being inclined outward, and framed into the square of the opening, as is conspicuously the case in the tomb at Corneto (Fig. 255), and as is also described by Vitruvius (vi. 3). Vertical props obstructing the space would be the less necessary, inasmuch as the dimensions of the court were small, on account of the lower temperature of the region. The Italian court thus differed from that of Greece by an entire absence of columns, as well as by the outward inclination of the roof. The latter peculiarity had the advantage that, notwithstanding the restriction of the central aperture, more light was admitted, the slanting rays of the sun falling high upon the walls; while, on the other hand, the interior of the house was free from the objectionable rain-drip, and, by covering the orifice in bad weather or at night, could be entirely isolated and protected. A remarkable copy of a roof upon an Etruscan clay sarcophagus (Fig. 256) shows the outward aspects of the dwellings of Central Italy, as the tomb at Corneto (Fig. 255) does the interior. The roof of the atrium, rising like a clere-story, inclined outward, while the covering of the chambers surrounding this space carried the drip still farther from the central aperture. The practical sense of the Italians was thus expressed, as opposed to the more cheerful and elevated ideals of form among the Greeks. These constructive advantages were attained, however, at the cost of that artistic, or at least tasteful, development of the whole which was characteristic of the Greeks, even when striving mainly after public usefulness or private comfort.
The remaining monuments of Etruria are almost entirely limited to tombs, among which it is not possible to recognize progressive stages of architectural design. Still it is evident that examples like the Regulini-Galassi tomb of Cære, which shows a most primitive covering of the chambers, and that of Alsium, or the Campana tomb at Veii, must belong to an earlier period than do those sepulchres in which the imitation of a dwelling-house, particularly in regard to the roof-timbering, shows an advanced intelligence and great technical skill. This skill is equally evident in the decorative members: pilasters before the piers, the carvings of the coffin-benches, and utensils upon the walls, with Hellenic features of a late and advanced period. A further division of Etruscan monuments into chronological periods is not possible; it is only to be concluded that the most primitive are less ancient than has usually been supposed, and are probably to be referred to the seventh century B.C., while the later and more perfected tombs may date from 250 to 150 B.C.
The numerous sculptural productions of Etruria may be better grouped. They are preserved in the Gregorian Museum of the Vatican, the British Museum, the earlier Campana collection in the Louvre, and special collections in various towns in Tuscany, particularly at Perugia. Others are scattered among the many museums of Europe. As the practical character of the Italians might lead us to expect, the greater part of these works consist of utensils and implements; those which bear the stamp of the greatest antiquity belonging almost exclusively to this class. The earliest period may be called the decorative, in which art was employed only for the ornamentation of useful articles. The most ancient specimens of this handiwork are those in the British Museum, found in the Grotto dell’ Iside of Vulci, and those in the Gregorian Museum of the Vatican, from the Regulini-Galassi tomb at Cære. The material is gold, silver, and bronze—occasionally amber and ivory; the objects are ornaments, such as breastplates, ear-rings, bracelets of gold wire and thinly beaten gold; also golden and amber necklaces, silver bowls, candelabra, kettles, tripods, couches, censers, and shields of bronze. All these are evident imitations of imported wares. The beaten figures of the breast ornaments remind one of the vessels excavated at Nineveh, Cyprus, and Mykenæ; the decorations of the silver bowls are more like the discoveries in Cyprus and Phœnicia; the bulb-like candelabra are similar to the Cyprian bronze utensils, and also to the seven-armed candlestick of the Temple of Jerusalem. Having already designated the vessels of Nineveh and those of Mykenæ as of Phœnician workmanship, and the Egyptianized ivoryware found upon the Tigris as having been brought into Mesopotamia by the Phœnicians as an article of trade, there can be no hesitation in referring the objects discovered in Etruria to the same origin. The beaten work in sheet-metal was among the best-executed productions of the Phœnicians, and among their most important articles of commerce; and intercourse between the Phœnicians and the Etruscans is known to have been active. Through this current of trade must also have come the vials and alabasters with Egyptian hieroglyphics and symbols; the gilded bronze birds with the pshent upon their heads, like those from the Grotto dell’ Iside; and the beetle-shaped bodies of clay, like the scarabæus, found in different places, for the Etruscans had no direct intercourse with Egypt. It is possible, however, that some of the objects which bear the characteristic forms of those countries are to be regarded as Etruscan manufactures, adhering closely to the imported patterns.
The era next following is distinguished as being emancipated from the earlier dependence upon the East, the Asiatic influence being gradually replaced by that of Hellas. Here may be mentioned the half-mythical report that, about 650 B.C., the Corinthian artists Eucheir, Diopos, and Eugrammos—whose names, as personification of handiwork in art, give little confidence—emigrated to Italy and there introduced sculpture. Though this may be taken to indicate an active artistic impulse, it cannot alone explain the great and decided advance that we find. In Southern Etruria monumental sculpture must early have attained a certain importance, since Tarquinius Priscus ordered from Vulca, or Vulcanius of Veii, a statue of the Capitoline Jupiter, and a quadriga for the gable ridge of his temple. The material for such colossal works was terra-cotta with a painting, perhaps monochromatic; at least, the nude parts of the image of Jupiter were repeatedly tinted with a red color. The roughness of such conventionalized work can hardly be conceived; the trunk, in a sitting figure, was not detailed; the extremities, on the contrary, had all the ugliness of realism; the head was sharply individualized, verging upon portraiture. As the oldest example of this treatment of the head may be mentioned the bust found in the Grotto dell’ Iside at Vulci (Fig. 257), which shows, at the same time, that the germ of that specific Etruscan motive—the conception of the individual, to the neglect of the general or ideal—existed even in the period of dependence upon Asiatic influence. This characteristic Etruscan formation of the head, though in a less artistic and more superficial style, is also shown in the so-called canopi of Chiusi—jugs with portrait heads upon the lids. These are distantly related to the Egyptian jars of the kind, but show scarcely a trace of the early conventional influence of ideal Greek sculpture; the heads, of extreme rudeness, are yet sharp and hard in modelling; coarse caricatures of the round skull and low, retreating forehead, which yet betray a certain observation of nature.
