Up and down the hillside we could see the peasants returning from their work in the fields, and the whole world was caught in the sudden glory of the setting sun. A woman came towards us with the key of the tomb; she had a baby in her arms, and on her head a great mottled pitcher, green and gold, full of spring water. The sunlight wove a halo round her till she seemed as radiant as one of Pinturicchio's Madonnas.
The great doors of travertine groaned as they swung slowly open on their stone pivots, and a scorpion fled from the light. Dennis says, 'There can be no doubt of the antiquity of these doors; it is manifest in their very arrangement; for the lintel is a huge mass of rock buried beneath a weight of superincumbent earth, and must have been laid after the slabs were in their place.'
This sepulchre, like most Etruscan tombs of importance, is divided into several chambers. Its roof is curiously coffered, and was at one time painted red and black. But it is the wall paintings which are of supreme interest here. Unlike the other tombs of Chiusi the sandstone walls have been whitened, and even so the figures are hardly distinguishable. But look close. It is worth the trouble, for as your candlelight drives the shadows back, the story of an ancient world unfolds itself. Here, to the right, three charioteers urge their archaic steeds to the winning-post; here are the wrestlers; here the musicians with their doublepipes and lutes, and here a dancing girl. On the other wall you can trace the progress of a banquet, and see the languid youths of Etruria reclining on couches, toying with wreaths and flowers, and holding out their paterae for the hurrying slaves to fill with wine.
But they are very faded. They are a world of shadows; they vanish with the months. Another generation will look for them in vain; then the athletes will no longer run their silent races to eternity, the music will be hushed, and the feet of the dancers stilled. And then, I suppose, the wonderful old doors will be taken away, and the angry scorpions will be left in possession. If you would see these ghosts, come soon. For if you come ten years after, perchance you will find nothing on the cold stone walls; their pictures will have gone the way of all the other antique graces which have been lost in Time's devouring maw!
In Italy, especially in the small cities, you have to bow to local convention. In Chiusi it takes the form of Etruscan tombs. Every one from tiny children to the oldest inhabitant volunteers to be your guide. A stranger would say that the Tomb of the Monkey or the Deposito del Gran Duca were topics of burning interest in the town, for the people will not rest until they are assured that he has visited them. It was for this reason that the sunrise next morning found us on our way to the Tomba della Scimmia, which lies a mile or so to the north-east of Chiusi. At first we followed the highroad where the gay painted ox-carts of Clusium, with their picturesque high-curved shafts, were already rolling up the hill. But our way soon turned off into a rough path which dipped down into the chilly sweetness of the olive-gardens. The sun had not yet risen high enough to penetrate these dewy hollows, but as we re-emerged from them and breasted the little oak-clad hills beyond, it slanted between the branches and made a halo round some young peasant girls, barefoot and with uncovered heads, who were carrying great pitchers of water to their cottages from an Artesian well. We dipped into more valleys and circled other hills, plucking the ripe blackberries as we passed, and gathering the flowers which made a tangle round our feet. The only people that we met were peasants at work below their olives, and every one of them gave us a smiling buon giorno a loro as we passed. Presently we came out upon a wooded cliff and saw Chiusi, with her fair white houses and her grey ivied rocca, across the valley to our right, and on our left the little lakes of Montepulciano and Chiusi, like opals in the dawn. Umbria again! The flowers at our feet, the glint of water in the wide green valley, the purple hills, the soft blue sky, the breadth and depth, the holiness and peace of mystic Umbria.
Chiusi: the Palace of the Bishop.