DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.786#0050
34 CERVBTRI. [chap, xxxiii.
Geotta della Sedia.
Hard by is a sepulchre, on the plan of those of Bieda,
with two small chambers, separated by a wall of rock, in
which are cut a door and two little windows, surrounded
by the usual rod-moulding. But the marvel of the tomb
is an arm-chair, cut from the living rock, standing by the
side of one of the two sepulchral couches in the outer
chamber, as though it were an easy-chair by the bed-side,
or as a seat for the doctor visiting his patient! But why
placed in a tomb 1 "Was it merely to carry out still
further the analogy to a house % Or was it, as Visconti
suggests, for the use of the relatives who came yearly to
hold solemn festivals at the tomb I5 Or was it for the
shade of the deceased himself, as though he were too
restless to be satisfied with his banqueting-couch, but
must have his easy-chair also to repose him after his
wanderings.6 Or, as Micali opines, was it to intimate the
blissful repose of the new life on which his spirit had
entered.7 Or was it not rather a curule chair, the
ifisigne of the rank or condition of the deceased, showing
him to have been a ruler or magnate in the land I8
Some eighteen or twenty years since a tomb was opened
in the Banditaccia, which contained two of these chairs,
each with a foot-stool attached, and a shield suspended
6 Antichi Monumenti di Ceri, p. 31— 7 Micali, Mon. Ined. p. 152.
■where he gives a description of a similar 8 The form of this and similar rock-
tomb, hewn seats in other tombs of Cervetri is
6 It may have been for the support of a very like that of the beautiful marble
funeral urn; for in the tombs of Chiusi, chair, with bas-reliefs, in the Palazzo
canopi, or vases in the form of human Corsini at Rome, which is thought to be
busts, which were, probably, the effigies Etruscan, and a genuine sella eurulis.
of the deceased whose ashes they con- It will be borne in mind that the curule
tained, have been found placed on seats chair was one of the Etruscan insignia
of this form. Bull. Inst. 1843, p. 68. of authority; and thence adopted by the
Such canopi have also been discovered Romans. See Vol. I. pp. 26, 376, 377.
at Caere, says Micali, Mon. Ined. p. 185.
Geotta della Sedia.
Hard by is a sepulchre, on the plan of those of Bieda,
with two small chambers, separated by a wall of rock, in
which are cut a door and two little windows, surrounded
by the usual rod-moulding. But the marvel of the tomb
is an arm-chair, cut from the living rock, standing by the
side of one of the two sepulchral couches in the outer
chamber, as though it were an easy-chair by the bed-side,
or as a seat for the doctor visiting his patient! But why
placed in a tomb 1 "Was it merely to carry out still
further the analogy to a house % Or was it, as Visconti
suggests, for the use of the relatives who came yearly to
hold solemn festivals at the tomb I5 Or was it for the
shade of the deceased himself, as though he were too
restless to be satisfied with his banqueting-couch, but
must have his easy-chair also to repose him after his
wanderings.6 Or, as Micali opines, was it to intimate the
blissful repose of the new life on which his spirit had
entered.7 Or was it not rather a curule chair, the
ifisigne of the rank or condition of the deceased, showing
him to have been a ruler or magnate in the land I8
Some eighteen or twenty years since a tomb was opened
in the Banditaccia, which contained two of these chairs,
each with a foot-stool attached, and a shield suspended
6 Antichi Monumenti di Ceri, p. 31— 7 Micali, Mon. Ined. p. 152.
■where he gives a description of a similar 8 The form of this and similar rock-
tomb, hewn seats in other tombs of Cervetri is
6 It may have been for the support of a very like that of the beautiful marble
funeral urn; for in the tombs of Chiusi, chair, with bas-reliefs, in the Palazzo
canopi, or vases in the form of human Corsini at Rome, which is thought to be
busts, which were, probably, the effigies Etruscan, and a genuine sella eurulis.
of the deceased whose ashes they con- It will be borne in mind that the curule
tained, have been found placed on seats chair was one of the Etruscan insignia
of this form. Bull. Inst. 1843, p. 68. of authority; and thence adopted by the
Such canopi have also been discovered Romans. See Vol. I. pp. 26, 376, 377.
at Caere, says Micali, Mon. Ined. p. 185.