DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.785#0517
chap, xxi.] BARBARISM OF ITALIAN EXCAVATORS. 411
which, in Rome and its neighbourhood, watches carefully
over antiquarian researches, would not do amiss in appoint-
ing experienced men to superintend the progress of scavi
also in more distant parts of the country—to note the
character of the sepulchres, the nature and relative arrange-
ment of their contents, and to prevent any improper
application of the spade or pickaxe. There is no British
" liberty of the subject" to interfere. As excavations are
made only at one season of the year, and on few sites,
such a plan would be neither difficult nor expensive;
and the additional light thrown on antiquarian science
would be valuable. As it is, facts, often perhaps of great
importance, are now unnoticed and unrecorded. We see
in the Museums of Europe, from Paris to St. Petersburgh,
the produce of these Vulcian tombs, and admire the sur-
passing elegance of the vases and the beauty of their designs,
and marvel at the extinct civilisation they indicate; but
they afford us no conception of the places in which they
have been preserved for so many centuries, or of their
relations thereto. All this is not, of course, to be set
forth in every case, yet the history of the most interesting
articles should be preserved. Such a record is kept but
in very few cases, where notices of remarkable tombs are
given in the publications of the Archaeological Institute,
and other antiquarian societies of Italy.
The excavations at Vulci, on the day I refer to, were not
wholly unproductive. Prom an adjoining tomb, sundry
painted vases of great beauty were drawn, together with
several baskets-full of fragments of similar vases, which
would be put together by a skilful artificer in the employ
of the Princess. I learned that the contents of the adjoining
tombs often differed widely in value, style, and degree of
antiquity—that sepulchres of various ranks, and different
condemnation. The mercenary character notorious, and prompt one to cry—
and barbarism of Italian excavators are Desine scrutari quod tegit ossa solum !
which, in Rome and its neighbourhood, watches carefully
over antiquarian researches, would not do amiss in appoint-
ing experienced men to superintend the progress of scavi
also in more distant parts of the country—to note the
character of the sepulchres, the nature and relative arrange-
ment of their contents, and to prevent any improper
application of the spade or pickaxe. There is no British
" liberty of the subject" to interfere. As excavations are
made only at one season of the year, and on few sites,
such a plan would be neither difficult nor expensive;
and the additional light thrown on antiquarian science
would be valuable. As it is, facts, often perhaps of great
importance, are now unnoticed and unrecorded. We see
in the Museums of Europe, from Paris to St. Petersburgh,
the produce of these Vulcian tombs, and admire the sur-
passing elegance of the vases and the beauty of their designs,
and marvel at the extinct civilisation they indicate; but
they afford us no conception of the places in which they
have been preserved for so many centuries, or of their
relations thereto. All this is not, of course, to be set
forth in every case, yet the history of the most interesting
articles should be preserved. Such a record is kept but
in very few cases, where notices of remarkable tombs are
given in the publications of the Archaeological Institute,
and other antiquarian societies of Italy.
The excavations at Vulci, on the day I refer to, were not
wholly unproductive. Prom an adjoining tomb, sundry
painted vases of great beauty were drawn, together with
several baskets-full of fragments of similar vases, which
would be put together by a skilful artificer in the employ
of the Princess. I learned that the contents of the adjoining
tombs often differed widely in value, style, and degree of
antiquity—that sepulchres of various ranks, and different
condemnation. The mercenary character notorious, and prompt one to cry—
and barbarism of Italian excavators are Desine scrutari quod tegit ossa solum !