Moses, Henry [Editor]: A collection of antique vases, altars, paterae, tripods, candelabra, sarcophagi, &c.: from various museums and collections (Mailand, 1814)

SEPULCHRES. 59

the former were called cinerary urns, and the latter ossuaries *
yet it was the more general practice to deposit the whole of
the remains of the burnt body inone urn. These urns, like
other kinds of vases, were made of various materials, of
gold, bronze, glass, clay, marble, or porphyry. Their shape
was either round or square. The square cinerary urns were
more sought after than the round ones, on account of
the greater interest which they excite from their inscrip-
tions, the greater variety of their ornaments, and the my-
thological and historical subjects with which they are em-
bellished. The cinerary urns were generally set in niches
made in the thickness of the walls of the sepulchral cham-
bers, called from this arrangement columbaria y. Some of
the mausoleums consisted of several chambers or colum-
baria. In the Villa Corsini J thirty-four of these chambers
were discovered; many of them elegantly ornamented with
stucco and painting, and the floors enriched with mosaic
work. These paintings perished soon after they were ex-
posed to the air, but happily drawings had been made of
them by Bartoli§ as soon as they were discovered. At
Rome they burnt the bodies of the freed slaves, and their

* Gutherius de jure Manium, 150.

f Vide Plates 113, 114, 117, 118,119,120.

t Vide Plates 119, 120.

§ Gli Antichi Sepolcri, da P. S.Bartoli. fol. 1696.