Fig. 42. RELIEF ON A TOMB ALTAR FROM CHIUSI
In the Barracco Collection in Rome
Fig. 43. CINERARY URN FROM CHIUSI
TOMBA DEL CARDINALE
This tomb dates, as far as can be judged by the style of the painting, from the first half of the fourth century B.C.[115] From the beginning of the next century dates the Tomba del Cardinale at Corneto, which was discovered shortly after 1760,[116] then forgotten and filled in again, and finally reopened in 1786[117] by Cardinal Garambi, bishop of Corneto. It has suffered much by exposure to wind and weather and to tourists for more than a hundred and fifty years. It has a narrow frieze with battle scenes, doubtless mythological, but the interest is centred in the long narrow frieze of pictures under the ceiling. The subject of this is the march of the shades towards the other side ([fig. 46]). A woman is drawn on a two-wheeled cart by two winged demons, one light and the other blue-black, both wearing the traditional garb of the genii of death, familiar from the contemporary sarcophagi and cinerary urns: a shirt with braces, and high top boots. This is perhaps the young woman who is mentioned in the inscription of the tomb: ‘Ramtha, daughter of Vel and Vestrcni, who was wife (puia) of Larth Lartha, and who lived (valce instead of svalce) nineteen years.’ A young man follows in a long cloak: he turns round to a black, winged demon carrying a hammer ([fig. 47]). Beyond the gateway of the underworld behind him a devil of the same type is seated, and then comes a crowd of young people driven along by two devils, one of whom threatens them with his hammer.[118] A woman, who looks back moaning, is being brutally dragged along by two male demons, and at the end of the procession two winged devils are seen hastening forward, slender of limb and agile of movement, like poisonous insects. In a fragment of a frieze, which is now badly damaged, the Charun devil was once more seen in the act of crushing a skull with his hammer.[119]
