Copenhagen,
January 1921.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
| Facing page | ||
| [1] | Wall-painting from the Tomba Campana | 7 |
| [2] | Main picture in the Tomba dei Tori at Corneto | 7 |
| [3] | Back wall in the Tomba degli Auguri | 11 |
| [4] | Right main wall in the Tomba degli Auguri | 12 |
| [5] | Part of the left main wall in the Tomba degli Auguri. (After a coloured drawing in the Helbig Museum) | 12 |
| [6] | Painting from the Tomba del Pulcinella | 12 |
| [7] | Left main wall of the Tomba delle Iscrizioni | 15 |
| [8] | Back wall of the Tomba delle Iscrizioni | 15 |
| [9] | Picture from the Tomba del Morto at Corneto | 16 |
| [10] | Picture from the Tomba del Triclinio | 16 |
| [11] | ‘La bella ballerina’ in the Tomba Francesca Giustiniani | Frontispiece |
| [12] | Right main wall in the Tomba delle Iscrizioni | 19 |
| [13] | Back wall in the Tomba delle Leonesse at Corneto | 20 |
| [14] | Left main wall in the Tomba del Barone | 20 |
| [15] | Right main wall in the Tomba delle Bighe | 22 |
| [16] | Etruscan terracotta head in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek | 22 |
| [17] | Part of the small frieze in the Tomba delle Bighe. (After Arch. Jahrb. 1916) | 22 |
| [18] | Wall-painting from the Tomba del Morente: the lassoing of the horse | 24 |
| [19] | Part of the small frieze in the Tomba delle Bighe. (After Arch. Jahrb. 1916) | 24 |
| [20] | Part of the Tomba della Scimmia at Chiusi | 24 |
| [21] | Part of the small frieze in the Tomba delle Bighe. (After Arch. Jahrb. 1916) | 27 |
| [22] | Part of the small frieze in the Tomba delle Bighe. (After Arch. Jahrb. 1916) | 27 |
| [23] | Symposium in the Tomba delle Bighe | 27 |
| [24] | Back wall in the Tomba dei Leopardi (After Arch. Jahrb. 1916. Pl. 9) | 31 |
| [25] | Married couple on an Etruscan cinerary urn | 31 |
| [26] | Picture from the Tomba degli Scudi at Corneto | 35 |
| [27] | Picture from the Tomba degli Scudi at Corneto. (After a coloured drawing in the Helbig Museum) | 35 |
| [28] | Arnth Velchas and wife on couch. Picture in the Tomba dell’ Orco (After a coloured drawing in the Helbig Museum) | 36 |
| [29] | Head of Arnth Velchas’ wife. From the Tomba dell’ Orco | 37 |
| [30] | Back wall in the Tomba del Vecchio | 37 |
| [31] | Symposium in the Tomba Golini at Orvieto | 38 |
| [32] | Wall-painting in the Tomba Golini | 38 |
| [33] | Kitchen interior in the Tomba Golini | 40 |
| [34] | Painting in the Tomba del Letto funebre, at Corneto | 40 |
| [35] | Demon in the Tomba dell’ Orco | 49 |
| [36] | Picture in the Tomba dell’ Orco at Corneto | 50 |
| [37] | Hades, Persephone and Geryon in the Tomba dell’ Orco | 50 |
| [38] | Drawing from Michelangelo’s sketch-book | 51 |
| [39] | Wall-painting from the Tomba François at Vulci | 54 |
| [40] | Painting in the Tomba Golini at Orvieto | 54 |
| [41] | Painting from the Tomba della Pulcella | 54 |
| [42] | Relief on a tomb altar from Chiusi. In the Barracco Collection in Rome | 56 |
| [43] | Cinerary urn from Chiusi | 56 |
| [44] | Roman sarcophagus in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek | 58 |
| [45] | Procession of the dead in the Tomba del Tifone | 58 |
| [46] | Painted frieze in the Tomba del Cardinale | 58 |
| [47] | Part of the frieze in the Tomba del Cardinale | 58 |
ETRUSCAN TOMB-PAINTINGS
I
The tombs and tomb-paintings of Etruria constitute a field of archaeology in which the investigator is particularly apt to be reminded of numerous sins of omission and to be haunted by a painfully uneasy conscience. Indeed, the older archaeologists have less reason to plead guilty before the bar of science than those of more recent times. When the discovery and excavation of the Etruscan tombs began to make headway in the twenties of the nineteenth century, publications in text and illustrations followed comparatively close upon the discoveries. The first misfortune, however, took place when three of the most interesting tombs were published, the Tomba delle Bighe, the Tomba delle Iscrizioni, and the Tomba del Barone.
STACKELBERG AND KESTNER
It was the major-domo of the Bishop of Corneto, Vittorio Masi, who first opened them together with other tombs in the vicinity of Corneto. In the spring of 1827 he invited two German barons, Stackelberg, an able archaeologist, and Kestner, the Hanoverian ambassador in Rome, to inspect them, and, if they so desired, to survey, draw, and publish the pictures in the tombs. The two men arrived, accompanied by Thürmer, a Bavarian architect, to find the tombs themselves despoiled of their accessories, but the walls covered with wonderful pictures dating from the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. They set to work immediately, studying and copying the pictures in the richest of the tombs, the Tomba delle Bighe. Stackelberg made five charming water-colours in order to save the colouring for posterity; Thürmer executed eleven careful drawings. In all, the two men painted and drew two hundred and twenty-five figures, and the whole of the material is now preserved in the Archaeological Seminar of the University of Strasburg. In his diary Stackelberg gives a vivid description of the discomfort which they experienced, drawing by torchlight in the cold, dank tomb-chamber, and only emerging now and then into the warm Italian spring sunlight in order to recuperate or to enjoy a light repast on the top of the tumulus, commanding a view of the sea. To this were added fatiguing social duties; local patriotism was aroused in Corneto; the noble families in the town vied in displaying hospitality to the Germans, and big banquets were held, at which sonnets were recited to the ‘heroes’ who once slept in the tombs. The drawing and copying of the colours on the walls in the Tomb of the Chariots, as well as in the Tomb of the Inscriptions and in the Tomb of the Baron—so called after Baron Kestner—were rightly considered the chief matter, because in the very first summer after they were opened, the dampness of the tombs in a few weeks ruined large portions of them, especially in the Tomba delle Bighe. After his return to Rome, Baron Stackelberg caught typhoid fever and did not recover till late in the winter. In the next spring he went to Germany, where his excavations had created such an immense sensation that even the aged Goethe asked Stackelberg to dine with him in Weimar and studied the drawings with the greatest interest. But, in spite of the national enthusiasm called forth by the excavations, the projected great work came to nothing; the coloured plates of the paintings, with the then existing means of reproduction, promised to be so expensive that the publishers took alarm. Pending these negotiations, the paintings from the three tombs were published in French and Italian works in very poor and incorrect reproductions, and no other reproductions were available till 1916, when the German archaeologist, Weege, at last managed to bring out an admirable publication of the Tomba delle Bighe, the most important of the three tombs.[1]