Dennis, George: The cities and cemeteries of Etruria: in two volumes (Band 2) (London, 1848)

94 FIRENZE. [chap, xxxvii.

though it would puzzle a poet now to find any analogy
in the courteous and polished Florentines to the rugged
crags of Fiesole.

It is not my province to make further mention of
Florence, than to notice the relics of Etruscan anti-
quity preserved within the city, or discovered in the
neighbourhood.

The collection of such objects in the possession of the
Grand Duke is kept in the Gallery of the Uffizj ; and
though a meagre notice of it is to be found in the Guide
Books, I should not be justified in omitting to particularise
rather more fully the most interesting articles.

At the further end of the long Gallery in the western
wing are

The Uens.

The greater part of these are from Volterra, being a
selection made in 1770 from the abundant fruits of
the excavations then carrying forward, and at that time
were reputed the most beautiful relics of Etruscan antiquity
extant.3 A few have been subsequently added from the
same city, as well as from Chiusi. They are either of
travertine, alabaster, or of a yellow tufaceous stone. Out
of nearly fifty, very few are of remarkable beauty or
interest. Indeed, he who has visited Volterra or Chiusi,
will find little to admire in the urns of the Uffizj. The
figures on the lids are of the stumpy, contracted form
usual in the " ash-chests" of Volterra. All are reclining,
as at a banquet. The males, as usual, hold a goblet; the
females, generally a fan or a mirror in one hand, and
a pomegranate in the other; though one, of more depraved
taste, holds a rhyton, or drinking-cup.4 Most retain traces
of the minium with which they were coloured.

3 Inghirami, Monumenti Etruachi, I. « The rhyton is a drinking-cup, ori-

p. 11. ginally, perhaps, in the form of a cow's