DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.847#0216
TAEQUINIA. 197
he has nothing about him either of the wolf or the
crocodile; neither is he the Typhon of the Greeks, but
a winged genius above, and serpents below, the heads
of which express time, and the tails eternity.
They, like human life, have a beginning, but no
end; and are merged in an undying and intellectual
spirit. This was a favourite method of represen-
tation among the Etruscans. I have observed the
same on a sarcophagus at Chiusi, and I possess a
beautiful scarabeus of cornelian, with an engrav-
ing in the best style of art, identical with the
basso relievo at Chiusi, and nearly similar to the
Typhon of Tarquinia. It was truly an awful thing
to look upon the altar, and the Genius, and the
cold, calm, stern effigies, and coffins around—
Roman and Etruscan mingled together.
But a still greater anomaly of a different descrip-
tion, one of art, soon diverted our attention from the
dead, to those who seemed living on the walls,
such was the freedom and grace with which they
were depicted. Our eyes were riveted on an extra-
ordinary procession which occupied a small portion
of the wall to the right of the entrance. A drawing
of it accompanies this description, but neither the one
nor the other can give an adequate idea of the
beauty and nature of the original. It is miserably
injured, and will very soon be totally obliterated,
" I may judge of the progress of future decay from
the past; for the drawing was made a couple of
years before our visit, and not much more than
half now remains of that which is therein repre-
he has nothing about him either of the wolf or the
crocodile; neither is he the Typhon of the Greeks, but
a winged genius above, and serpents below, the heads
of which express time, and the tails eternity.
They, like human life, have a beginning, but no
end; and are merged in an undying and intellectual
spirit. This was a favourite method of represen-
tation among the Etruscans. I have observed the
same on a sarcophagus at Chiusi, and I possess a
beautiful scarabeus of cornelian, with an engrav-
ing in the best style of art, identical with the
basso relievo at Chiusi, and nearly similar to the
Typhon of Tarquinia. It was truly an awful thing
to look upon the altar, and the Genius, and the
cold, calm, stern effigies, and coffins around—
Roman and Etruscan mingled together.
But a still greater anomaly of a different descrip-
tion, one of art, soon diverted our attention from the
dead, to those who seemed living on the walls,
such was the freedom and grace with which they
were depicted. Our eyes were riveted on an extra-
ordinary procession which occupied a small portion
of the wall to the right of the entrance. A drawing
of it accompanies this description, but neither the one
nor the other can give an adequate idea of the
beauty and nature of the original. It is miserably
injured, and will very soon be totally obliterated,
" I may judge of the progress of future decay from
the past; for the drawing was made a couple of
years before our visit, and not much more than
half now remains of that which is therein repre-