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even some early Christian epitaphs. Now, however, scarcely a trace of the ancient city remains, and only a few fragments of wall, of imperial date, stand here and there above ground on the tableland which it once occupied upon the right bank of the Fiora, and which is still known as the Pian di Voce.'

Comparatively little also is now to be seen in the famous Necropolis of Volci, which occupied the summits of the cliffs on both sides of the Fiora about a mile below the Ponte del Abbadia, for though they are absolutely inexhaustible in the treasures they have afforded and continue to afford, the proprietors of the soil are so greedy of space, that a sepulchre is no sooner rifled of its contents, than it is filled up again. The tombs were first discovered by the earth falling in when some men were ploughing, in 1828. After that, Lucien Bonaparte, who had bought the Principality of Canino on the advice of Pius VII., made considerable scavi, appropriating the riches they afforded, and these excavations were afterwards continued by his family.

The points best worth visiting are on the left bank of the Fiora. Here is the before-mentioned sepulchral mound of La Cucumella, 200 feet in diameter and above forty feet high, once encircled by a wall of masonry. It was opened in 1829, but has been closed again. Two towers, one round and the other square, have been disclosed in the upper part of the mound, and it is supposed that there may have been once five of these towers on cones, as in the so-called tomb of Aruns near Albano. Beneath the towers were found two chambers approached by long passages, guarded by the sphinxes which are now at Musignano.

Near this is a walled tumulus called La Rotonda; and beyond it, near the Fiora, another smaller mound, called La Cucumelletta, which was opened in 1832. Near these an enormous tomb was discovered in 1857, consisting of a principal chamber with a pyramidal roof, surrounded by a series of smaller crypts, and approached by a pas sage 100 feet long. The principal tomb is surrounded by paintings: -Achilles sacrificing to the Manes of Patroclus: Ajax and Cassandra at the altar of Minerva: Masarna releasing Caeles Vibenna from his bonds, and other subjects, in good preservation. A tomb, opened in 1840, and reclosed, called the 'Grotta d' Iside,' was very curious, as containing painted ostrich-eggs, vases, and ointment pots decorated with figures of Isis, all evidently of Egyptian origin, as well as the effigies of the two ladies in whose honour it was constructed, one a miniature full-length marble figure, the other a bronze bust. On the opposite side of the Fiora, a tumulus, opened by Campanari in 1835, contained the skeleton of a warrior, with helm on his head, ring on his finger, and a confused mass of broken and oxidised weapons at his feet. The Grotta del Sole e della Luna,' opened in 1830, consists of eight chambers, with walls and ceilings carved in regular patterns.

Beyond that part of the Necropolis known as La Polledrara, the little river Timone flows under a natural arch called the Ponte Sodo, a miniature of that at Veii, and Ponte Terra, near Tivoli.

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'On the painted pottery, found at Volci, it were needless to expatiate. Every museum in Europe proclaims its beauty, and, through it, the name of Volci, never much noised in classic times, and well-nigh forgotten for two thousand years, has become immortal, and acquired a wider renown than it ever possessed during the period of the city's existence. Volci has none of the tall black ware with figures in relief, which is peculiar to Chiusi and its neighbourhood; but of painted vases there is every variety from the earliest, quaintest efforts, through every grade in excellence, to the highest triumphs of Hellenic ceramographic art. Of the early, so-called Doric, pottery, little is found at Volci; nor of the perfect style, which is predominant at Nola, is there so great an abundance here; the great mass of Volcian vases being of the Attic style--of that severe and archaic design, which is always connected with black figures on a yellow ground. The best vases of Volci, in the chaste simplicity of their style, closely resemble those of Nola and Sicily; yet there are characteristic shades of difference, in form and design, which can be detected by a practised eye. On this site, more than on any in Etruria, have been found those singular vases painted with eyes, so common also in Sicily, the meaning of which continues to perplex antiquaries.

'Although thousands on thousands of painted vases have been redeemed from oblivion, this cemetery still yields a richer harvest than any other in Etruria. No site has been so well worked by the excavator-none has so well repaid him; yet it seems far from exhausted. Nor is it rich in vases alone. Bronzes of various descriptions, mirrors with beautiful designs, vessels, tripods, candelabra, weapons-are proportionally abundant, and maintain the same relative excellence to the pottery. That exquisite cista, or casket, now in the Gregorian Museum, and which yields not in beauty to any one of those very rare relics of ancient taste and genius, was found at Volci. No site yields more superb and delicate articles in gold and jewellery--as the Cabinets of the Vatican and of Cavaliere Campana (now in the Louvre) can testify; none more numerous relics in bone-spoons, needles, dice, to wit-or more beautiful specimens of variegated glass.'-Dennis.

A visit to Volci finds its natural sequel at the Palace of Musignano, five miles distant, the property of Prince Torlonia, who bought it in 1854 from the Roman Bonapartes, with whom it was a favourite residence. It is an ordinary villa built on the site of the Cistercian Abbey ('Abbadia') which gave a name to the bridge at Volci. The gate and courtyard are adorned with griffins and lions from La Cucumella, but the collections of antiquities within, formed by Lucien Bonaparte and his widow, has been long since dispersed. The gardens and shrubberies, which are of great extent, are now overgrown and neglected. There is a lake with an island planted with willows from the grave at S. Helena.

The little town of Canino, which gives a princely title to the descendants of Lucien Bonaparte, is about two miles from the villa at the foot of the hill called Monte di Canino. In the church is a monument by Pampaloni to Prince Lucien, who died at Viterbo and is buried here, with his second wife. The Monte di Canino is 1380 feet in height, and, in its lonely position and limestone formation, greatly resembles Soracte. It is possible to proceed in a carriage from Canino to Toscanella, about nine miles distant, but as it is difficult to sleep there, and impossible to pass the night in the wretched locanda of Canino, it will be better to return to Corneto, and make the excursion from the latter place.

CHAPTER XXXI

TOSCANELLA AND CENTRAL ETRURIA

Toscanella (Albergo Porzi) is easily reached, either from Viterbo, eighteen miles by a good road; or from Corneto, seventeen miles distant. (Locanda Mancinelli.) If possible, the visitor should take an introduction to some private family in the town. The Etruscan sites beyond Toscanella are seldom visited, and can only in some instances be approached on horseback or on foot. The accommodation is of the humblest description.

Tos

ПOSCANELLA (anciently Tuscania), is visible from a great distance, on a height above the valley of the Marta.

Vedemo Toscanela tanto anticha
Quanto alcun altra de questo paese.'

-Fazio degli Uberti.

Toscanella is mentioned by Pliny as amongst the municipal communities of Etruria, but otherwise unknown to history. It is situated on the right bank of the Marta. Its early importance has probably been exaggerated, owing to the discovery of a single tomb of great magnificence, which ought rather to be considered to attest the wealth and importance of an individual family. There are few traces of the Etruscan city, and only small vestiges of reticulated walling to mark the Roman settlement which followed it. The mediaeval remains of Toscanella are far more important. The hill of S. Pietro, which is mile outside the later town, was probably the arx of the Etruscan city. It is surrounded by a band of square mediaeval towers, which are double—‘a tall slender tower being encased, with no intervening space, in an outer shell of masonry.' On this height also is the Duomo (S. Pietro), a most interesting building, partly of the ninth, partly of the eleventh century. It consists of a triple-recessed round-headed central door, above which runs a small open gallery of eleven arches. To this succeeds a magnificent wheel-window of elaborate design flanked on each side by a light of two slender arches. Above it, a rich corbel-table leads to an ordinary rough pediment. The wonderfully rich central section of this façade is adorned with figures of men, devils, and beasts, possible and impossible, in high relief. The side portals are closed. Within, the church is a museum of pagan relics: the columns which divide the nave from the aisles are Roman, the font rests on a pagan altar, and the crypt beneath the high-altar, said to have been a Roman bath, has twenty-eight ancient columns, some of them fluted.

'The date of the interior is known. It forms part of a church which was built, about the middle of the seventh century, when the bodies of the saints Secundiano, Marcellino, and Veriano, were discovered (at Celli in 628) and brought to Toscanella. A splendid crypt was, as usual, prepared for their reception beneath the sanctuary.

The front must have been rebuilt at much later times. The style is very peculiar. In the works of the Lombards we find an abundance of dragons and serpents, but we do not find them coursing down the front, from the eaves to the portal, as in the present instance. At Viterbo, however, which is at the distance of only a few miles from Toscanella, traces of the same peculiarity exist. The same extraordinary animals, though injured by time, and half-concealed by whitewash, may still be perceived on the front of the Church of San Giovanni in Zoccoli in that city. That church is known to have been complete in 1037. It may therefore be safely assumed that the existing front of San Pietro of Toscanella was built in the first half of the eleventh century.

The ruined building which adjoins the church is the remains of the episcopal palace. The bishop's chair, which had been removed from Santa Maria to San Pietro in the seventh century, was again removed to the church of S. James in the sixteenth century, when Toscanella had shrunk to its present limits.'-H. Gally Knight.

'This great church stands in splendid solitude on a hill outside the city, and occupies the site of an ancient citadel. It is built on the Basilica-plan with a very deep presbytery. Its detail is quite rudimentary, but there is a certain fortress-like quality about the building, and a feeling for broad masses of masonry, which give one a favourable impression of the instincts of these early builders.'-Reginald Blomfield, in Quarterly Review,' April 1903.

Near S. Pietro is the still older and exceedingly curious church of S. Maria (founded in the eighth century), whose façade of the tenth century with three round-headed doors, is richly decorated with an arcaded gallery, followed by a bold wheel window. The church ends in an apse containing a fresco of the Last Judgment (School of Giotto), and over the high-altar is a ciborium. The font is octagonal. The pulpit is a beautiful work of the thirteenth century. Ughelli (Italia Sacra) mentions that the episcopal chair was removed from S. Maria to S. Pietro in the middle of the seventh century, which proves that at least in the early part of the seventh century this church must have been in existence, and it is almost certain to have been in existence in the sixth century also, as the signature of a bishop of Toscanella occurs in A.D. 595.

The church was reconsecrated in 1206.

We may conclude that Santa Maria was a finished building at the close of the sixth century and the style of the interior of the church corresponds with that time. It is a studious, and not an unsuccessful, imitation of the Roman. All the pillars have foliage capitals, with no admixture of imagery; but, in the cornice, are seen a few of the symbolical figures which, at that period, began to make their appearance in churches.'-Gally Knight.

San Silvestro is also worth a visit.

After the beautiful churches, the chief attraction at Toscanella is the Etruscan museum and garden of the brothers Carlo and Secondiano Campanari, to whom the excavations of Tuscania are due, and who have largely contributed by the sale of their antiquities to all the important Etruscan collections of Europe. It is situated in the lower portion of the town. In the garden is a facsimile of an Etruscan tomb, opened by the Campanari, and inscribed 'Ecasuthinesl'

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over the entrance. It contained the ten sarcophagi found in the original tomb. Upon each lies the owner, half reclining, as if at a banquet, who seems to be pledging his neighbour with the goblet in his hand. The flower-beds are fringed by sarcophagi, with Etruscans, male and female, reclining on the lids, leaning upon their left arms, and looking at the spectator,-and strange is the effect! In the tomb called Il Calcarello, opened by the Campanari in 1839, no less than twenty-seven sarcophagi were found, those of the women forming an inner circle, outside which lay their husbands. All the sarcophagi are of nenfro.

The tombs of Tuscania are chiefly hewn out of the cliffs in the neighbouring ravines. They have no architectural decorations. The most remarkable is that called Grotta della Regina, half a mile from the town, beneath the Madonna dell' Olivo. A long passage opens upon a square chamber supported by two columns, and bebind it winds a labyrinthine passage, which leaves the tomb on one side, and, after many twists and turns, returns to it on the other. To visit this, lights are necessary.

Fourteen miles north of Toscanella on Via Clodia is Ischia (Locanda Saffi), an Etruscan site (Maternum), with ravines containing tombs and an unfinished mediaeval castle. Two miles west of this is Farnese, a walled townlet, also of Etruscan origin. Three miles further is Castro (Castremonium), where the hill-side is covered with the ruins of a flourishing city, utterly destroyed, cathedral and all, by Pope Innocent X. in 1647, because its bishop had been murdered by Ranuccio Farnese, Lord of Castro! The See was at the same time removed to Acquapendente. Castro is a beautiful place with ravines overhung with ilexes, two ruined bridges, and tombs and columbaria hewn in the cliffs.

Five miles west of Ischia is Valentano (Albergo del Sole), looking down upon the lake of Bolsena, and having a fine gate by Vignola, whence a bridle-path leads twelve miles to Pitigliano, passing on the way the little Lake of Mezzano, supposed to be the Lacus Statoniensis, mentioned by Pliny and Seneca. Pitigliano is a large place, picturesquely situated, like Civita Castellana and many Etruscan sites, on a tongue of land, surrounded by ravines. Close outside the city gate, called Porta di Sotto, is a fine fragment of the ancient wall in eight courses of tufo blocks. The neighbouring ravines are exceedingly beautiful, especially near the little waterfall called 'La Cascatella.' The height called Poggio Strozzoni was once occupied by a castle of the Orsini, said to have been ruined after the last count, in a fit of jealousy, flung his wife into the ravine from the bridge above the Cascatella. Two strange figures lie here hewn out of the rock. The people call them 'Orlando and his wife.' Unfortunately they are only of cinque-cento origin, colossal ornaments of the Orsini villa.

Five miles NE. of Pitigliano is Sorana, also an Etruscan site, and almost picturesque place.

In the centre of the town rises a precipitous mass of rock, whose summit commands one of the most romantic scenes in this part of Italy. The town

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