DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.786#0491
474 PERUGIA.—The Cemetery. [chap. lvui.
The fifth male, who occupies the post of honour at the
upper end of the feast, lies on a couch more richly
decorated than those of his kinsmen, and on a much loftier
pedestal. His urn is the grand monument of the sepulchre.
In the centre is represented an arched doorway, and on
either hand sits, at the angle of the urn, the statue of
a winged Fury, half draped, with bare bosom and a pair of
snakes knotted over her brows. One bears a flaming
torch on her shoulder • and the other probably bore a
similar emblem, but one hand, with whatever it contained,
has been broken off. They sit crosslegged, with calm but
stern expression, and eyes turned upwards, as if looking
for orders from on high, respecting the sepulchre they are
guarding. The archway is merely marked with colour on
the face of the monument, and within it are painted four
females—one with her hand on the doorpost, and eyes
anxiously turned towards the Furies outside—wishing, it
would seem, to issue forth, but not daring to pass the
threshold through dread of their stern gaolers. The whole
scene has a mysterious, Dantesque character, eminently
calculated to stir the imagination.
The sixth urn belongs to a female, who is distinguished
from the lords of her family by her position ; for she sits
aloft on her pedestal like a goddess or queen on her
throne ; indeed, she has been supposed to represent either
Nemesis, or Proserpine,5 an opinion which the frontlet on
her brow, and the owl-legs to the stool beneath her feet
urns, for in the earlier works of art, meet, it was believed that it was her
whether Greek or Etruscan, the Gorgon marvellous beauty, not her hideousness,
was represented as fearfully hideous as that turned beholders into stone. Serv.
the imagination of the artist could con- ad JEn. II. 616.
ceive her. See the wood-cuts at pages 5 Vermiglioli, Sepolcro de' Volunni,
244, 352. But in after times it became p. 42. Feuerbach, Bull. Inst. 1840, p.
customary to represent her as a "fair- 120.
cheeked lass ; " indeed, as extremes
The fifth male, who occupies the post of honour at the
upper end of the feast, lies on a couch more richly
decorated than those of his kinsmen, and on a much loftier
pedestal. His urn is the grand monument of the sepulchre.
In the centre is represented an arched doorway, and on
either hand sits, at the angle of the urn, the statue of
a winged Fury, half draped, with bare bosom and a pair of
snakes knotted over her brows. One bears a flaming
torch on her shoulder • and the other probably bore a
similar emblem, but one hand, with whatever it contained,
has been broken off. They sit crosslegged, with calm but
stern expression, and eyes turned upwards, as if looking
for orders from on high, respecting the sepulchre they are
guarding. The archway is merely marked with colour on
the face of the monument, and within it are painted four
females—one with her hand on the doorpost, and eyes
anxiously turned towards the Furies outside—wishing, it
would seem, to issue forth, but not daring to pass the
threshold through dread of their stern gaolers. The whole
scene has a mysterious, Dantesque character, eminently
calculated to stir the imagination.
The sixth urn belongs to a female, who is distinguished
from the lords of her family by her position ; for she sits
aloft on her pedestal like a goddess or queen on her
throne ; indeed, she has been supposed to represent either
Nemesis, or Proserpine,5 an opinion which the frontlet on
her brow, and the owl-legs to the stool beneath her feet
urns, for in the earlier works of art, meet, it was believed that it was her
whether Greek or Etruscan, the Gorgon marvellous beauty, not her hideousness,
was represented as fearfully hideous as that turned beholders into stone. Serv.
the imagination of the artist could con- ad JEn. II. 616.
ceive her. See the wood-cuts at pages 5 Vermiglioli, Sepolcro de' Volunni,
244, 352. But in after times it became p. 42. Feuerbach, Bull. Inst. 1840, p.
customary to represent her as a "fair- 120.
cheeked lass ; " indeed, as extremes