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

414 CHIANCIANO AND MONTEPULCIANO. [chap. liv.

of the inscriptions are remarkable for having Etruscan
names in Roman letters,1 as—

TITIA • C • L A . . . ABASSA

FAVSAL ARNTHAL • FRAVNAL.

Let not the traveller omit to pay his devoirs to the
liquid " manna of Montepulciano," the monarch of Tuscan,
if not of all other wines, as Bacchus and Redi have pro-
nounced it—

"Montepulciano d'ogni vino e il Re."

Hark to the extatic jolliness of the god!—

" Sweet Ariadne—
Fill me the manna of Montepulciano !
Fill me a magnum, and reach it me.—Gods !
How it slides to my heart by the sweetest of roads !
Oh, how it kisses me, tickles me, bites me !
Oh, how my eyes loosen sweetly in tears !
I 'm ravish'd ! I 'm rapt ! Heaven finds me admissible !
Lost in an ecstasy! blinded ! invisible !
Hearken all earth!

We, Bacchus, in the might of our great mirth
To all who reverence us, and are right thinkers ;—
Hear, all ye drinkers !

Give ear and give faith to our edict divine—
Montepulciano 's the king of all wine."

Montepulciano commands a most extensive view of the
vale of the Chiana, which, after lying in confined luxu-
riance between this range and the triple paps of Chiusi,
here swells out and unfolds its beauties in a wide expanse
of fertility; stretching northward to the walls of Arezzo
and the tower-crowned height of Cortona; and eastward
beyond the twin lakes, to the broad and bright-bosomed

1 Those in the native character men- (Sejanus), Veltbur (Veturius), Pethni,

tion the families of Varna (Varins), &c, but the greater part belong to the

Trepu (Trebius), Tlesna or Tresna families of Lecne (Licinius) and Tetina

(Teiesinus), Latini (Latinus), Seianti (Titinius).