DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.847#0219
200 TAEQUINIA.
" No greater grief than to remember days
Of joy when mis'ry is at hand.
Yet so eagerly
If thou art bent to know the primal root,
From whence our love got being, I will do
As one who weeps and tells his tale."
The height of the figures is not above twelve
inches. The style of art in which they are executed
is not Etruscan; it resembles rather some of the best
specimens of the earlier times of the empire, such
as are to be seen among the frescos of Pompeii.
The eyes of the Tarquinian Francesca, in particular,
reminded me of those of the celebrated Achilles,
or of the Juno, which are preserved in the Museo
Borbonico. But, on looking up, I saw a standard
raised in the midst of the procession, inscribed
with Etruscan letters; and this decided the point
of its nationality, and, to a certain extent, of its
antiquity. The letters are accurately copied in the
annexed drawing, and when the knowledge of things
ancient comes in a sufficient stream to enable us to
decipher this dead language of an extinct people,
then, and not until then, will the fate of Paolo and
Francesca be unveiled. But then even their effi-
gies will have been effaced, and no further interest
can be felt in their weal or woe, innocence or guilt.
Another peculiarity of the paintings of this chamber
is, that they are done in fresco, not, as in the other
tombs, on a preparation of sand. This, together
with the more Grecian or Roman style of art,
denotes, in my opinion, a work of later Etruria; but
" No greater grief than to remember days
Of joy when mis'ry is at hand.
Yet so eagerly
If thou art bent to know the primal root,
From whence our love got being, I will do
As one who weeps and tells his tale."
The height of the figures is not above twelve
inches. The style of art in which they are executed
is not Etruscan; it resembles rather some of the best
specimens of the earlier times of the empire, such
as are to be seen among the frescos of Pompeii.
The eyes of the Tarquinian Francesca, in particular,
reminded me of those of the celebrated Achilles,
or of the Juno, which are preserved in the Museo
Borbonico. But, on looking up, I saw a standard
raised in the midst of the procession, inscribed
with Etruscan letters; and this decided the point
of its nationality, and, to a certain extent, of its
antiquity. The letters are accurately copied in the
annexed drawing, and when the knowledge of things
ancient comes in a sufficient stream to enable us to
decipher this dead language of an extinct people,
then, and not until then, will the fate of Paolo and
Francesca be unveiled. But then even their effi-
gies will have been effaced, and no further interest
can be felt in their weal or woe, innocence or guilt.
Another peculiarity of the paintings of this chamber
is, that they are done in fresco, not, as in the other
tombs, on a preparation of sand. This, together
with the more Grecian or Roman style of art,
denotes, in my opinion, a work of later Etruria; but