[33] I am aware that it is unusual to place Italy before Greece in any ancient historical question; but I am induced to do this because the real ancient Italian art, namely that of the Etruscans, was coeval with the oldest Greek schools, if not anterior to them; and that as the Roman conquests destroyed the arts of old Italy before the most brilliant periods of Greek painting, I may well look upon Italian or Etruscan painting as having an earlier life and death than that of Greece.
[34] Micali, Vol. II., p. 73.
[35] Micali, Vol. I., p. 32, mentions certain books of the ancient Italians, preserved at Anagni, so late as the time of Fronto.
[36] For whatever notices of ancient or modern authors, before his own time, that can throw lustre on Etruscan art, I must refer to Tiraboschi, Storia delle Lettere Italiane, Parte Prima, x. to xviii., and to Micali’s work generally.
[37] It is a pity that the want of early Italian writers deprives us of the means of judging of the truth of some of the marvellous traditional accounts of Etruscan monuments. The cavern sepulchres of Clusium may possibly have been connected with the labyrinth which Pliny, B. xxxvi., c. 13, on the authority of Varro, says, was under that incomprehensible tomb of Porsenna, the account of which reads like a fairy tale; and has uselessly employed some modern dreamers in impossible restorations.
The square body of the building, the four pyramids at the corners, and that in the centre, will remind the traveller of the modest monument, miscalled that of the Horatii and Curiatii, on the road between Laricia and Rome. To me it seems to have some resemblance with that raised by Simon Maccabeus to his family, about three centuries after Porsenna’s time, 1 Macc. xiii., v. 27, 28, 29, 30.
[38] See the 22nd chapter of Micali for what can be known of the religion of ancient Italy, its gradual alteration, and the introduction of Egyptian, Oriental, and Greek mysteries by the Cabiri, who, in their mixed character of priest and merchant, appear to have influenced the whole system of worship.
[39] I say the re-opening, because it appears that at some former time or times, now forgotten, the sepulchres have been searched for the precious metals which, in the form of ornaments of various kinds, were buried with their owners. Some of the tombs remaining open served as refuge for robbers, for sheep-pens, &c. See Tiraboschi as above, also Micali.
[40] This demon, with his huge tusks and his large tongue, might be taken for the Hindoo demon that is to destroy all mankind at the end of the world, according to some. Several plates of this destroyer, who is sometimes to be identified with Siva, sometimes with Kali, are to be seen in Moore’s Hindoo Pantheon. The resemblance between the two monsters is very remarkable.
[41] From this it appears that the whole ear of corn was stored in these nets, as was the custom in Egypt.
[42] Book xxxv., ch. 3.
[43] Cleophantus is said to have used no other colour than pounded brick. Demaratus, the father of Tarquinius, had been a fugitive, and settled as a potter at Tarquinii.
[44] I quote the pleasant old translation by Philemon Holland. The 1st Book of Tiraboschi, to which I have already referred, may be consulted if any doubts concerning Pliny’s account should arise.
[45] Pliny mentions that, in his time, Pontius, a lieutenant of Caligula, wished to have removed the pictures from Ardea, but found that the plaster or stucco upon which they were painted would not bear removal. These pictures could not have been painted merely in water colours, for they were not injured by exposure to the weather. Could they have been painted with the size of oil, mentioned in book xxxvi., chap. 24? or were they not rather true frescoes?
[46] Book xxxiv., ch. 4.
[47] Before Christ, 485.
[48] Book xxxiv, ch. 7.
[49] “C. Fabius, a most noble Roman, who, when he had painted the walls of the Temple of Salus, before dedicated by Julius Bubulcus, he set his own name to it: as if a consular, sacerdotal, and triumphal family stood yet in want of this ornament.” Val. Max. book viii., quoted by Junius.
[50] Modern Messina.
[51] By Timomachus, a Byzantine contemporary with Cæsar, who was his patron according to one passage in Pliny’s thirty-fifth book; but other passages, with, as I think, more likelihood, make him older than Apelles. On carefully comparing such authorities as we have on the subject, I cannot help thinking that there were two, if not three, painters of the name. Two seem to have been Thracians.
[52] Most probably from the Pæcile, where the pictures were not painted in fresco, but on pannel. The portico of Octavia, with its library and pictures, was burnt in the time of Titus.
[53] The fashion of the fine wrought cups of chalcedony is said by Pliny to have been introduced into Rome by Pompey. B. xxxvii., c. 11.
[54] For his other various merits, see Fuseli’s first lecture.
[55] Among the pictures taken from Greece, Tiraboschi names, on the authority of Vitruvius, b. ii. c. 8, some frescoes from Sparta; which, by orders of the Ediles Murena and Varro, were sawn from the walls they adorned, and, being tightly wedged in wooden cases, were transported to Rome.
[56] Dioscorides, whose works came next in beauty to those of Pyrgoteles, Acmon, Aulus, and some others in the time of Augustus; Alpheus and Anthon in that of Caligula; Evodus and Necander under Titus; Ænorus in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, &c.
[57] See the basso-relievo, of the size of life, in the Villa Albani, and the statues in the Museum of the Capitol and the Galleries of the Vatican.
[58] Marcus Aurelius was himself a painter: his master was, according to Julian, Diognetes; whether the same Diognetes, who was his master in moral philosophy, does not appear.
[59] The arch of Constantine in Rome furnishes a perfect example: such parts as he stole from the forum of Trajan are of great merit, and do credit to the artists of the last good school of antique sculpture. Those portions of the decorative bas-reliefs, executed by Constantine’s workmen, are mean and deformed—totally worthless in design and contemptible as sculpture.
[60] Now Palestrina. See Cecconi, Historia di Palestrina.
[61] All Roman families of rank preserved the effigies of their forefathers, some in wax, others in clay, wood, marble, or bronze. These were carried in procession at funerals.
The images of Brutus and Cassius were not permitted to appear among those of seventy of the principal houses of Rome, at the funeral of Junia the widow of Cassius; but Tacitus says, that “before all the rest THEY flashed upon men’s thoughts, the more for not being there.”—Annals, Book iii.
The Athenians set up the statues of Brutus and Cassius along with those of Harmodius and Aristogiton.—Dion. Cassius, Book xlvii., c. 20, quoted by Colonel Leake.
[62] Of these, there are beautiful examples in the Libreria at Sienna, and some in the collection at Munich. The latter had not been arranged when I saw them in 1827.
[63] In and about the market-place at Pompeii, there are buildings partly repaired, and also preparations for repairing others. So that the consequences of the first catastrophe had by no means been fully removed before the second occurred.
[64] These pictures are now in the possession of Sir Matthew White Ridley. They were discovered in 1823, in a vineyard belonging to Signor Santa Amandola, to the right of the Via Appia, near San Sebastiano. The boy with the flute formed the centre of the vault of a Columbarium, and was taken down to preserve it. There were, in the same tomb, some relievos, in stucco, and some painted arabesques, of considerable merit. The Ganymede was found in the same vineyard, as was likewise a fine sarcophagus, which has been published in an archæological journal.
[65] See Pliny, Book xxxv., c. 11; and further, see Essay 6.
[66] See Essay 5, also see Pliny, Book xxxv. It is curious to observe how M. Durand has twisted this passage to suit his own views. It is only necessary to compare Durand’s paraphrase with the honest translation of old Philemon Holland, to be convinced of the Frenchman’s want of fidelity. Tiraboschi has, without his usual care, adopted Durand’s view of this matter. I think wrongly, for my reasons see Essay 6.
[67] See Franklin’s Lucian. In the dialogue, Zeuxis, Lucian says, that the original picture of the Centaurs was lost at sea; but that he saw a copy in a picture dealer’s shop, at Athens. It is worth while to refer to Lucian’s dream, for an account of the customs of the sculptors of his day,—the pupils crying casts about the streets, while the masters were labouring themselves.
[68] See the French translation, by Blaise de Vigenere, with its singular plates and notes, ten times more bulky than the original work. There is an epigram to each of the plates by D’Embry.
[69] Tiraboschi has laboured hard to convince himself and others that Zeuxis was a native of the Italian Heraclea. But I think he fails. Even if he succeeded in establishing his birth-place in Italy, his life was passed in Greece: there he studied and there he painted. His being employed by the Sicilians at Agrigentum, and by some towns in Magna Græcia, only prove their taste for Greek art, not that Zeuxis was an Italian.
(Additional Note to Essay II.)—It may appear strange that I have not mentioned Sicily, which abounded in works of art, more particularly in this Essay. But the truth is, there was no native school of either sculpture or painting; and whoever will take the trouble to read Cicero’s fourth oration against Verres, will see in that very interesting catalogue, that with trifling exceptions, all the statues and pictures which that guilty Prætor plundered the Sicilians of, were either imported from Greece, or the works of Greek artists. It is a pity that Cicero has not named the painters of those pictures which hung in the temple of Minerva at Syracuse[70], and which he praises so highly, especially the battle piece, representing Agathocles charging at the head of his cavalry. It would also be interesting to know the authors of those twenty-seven portraits of the tyrants and other great men of Syracuse, which the orator says were so valuable, not only as likenesses of the persons, but as works of art. Cicero, however, was no connoisseur, and when he wished to adorn his library, at Tusculum, with some work of art fit for the place, he employed a friend to choose it. And well did that friend choose, if the beautiful fragment now in the monastery, at Grotta Ferrata, and which was found on the site of the Tusculan Villa, be the very ornament sent from Athens, in compliance with his request.
[70] Now converted into the cathedral church. It must have been a beautiful specimen of Greek Doric, but it is hidden and defaced by the building and walls necessary for its conversion. I saw it in 1818.