Sunday
8th April: Gate of Mars, Perugia
Strolling round Perugia looking at
Renaissance architecture, it started to rain.
So we left the centro storico
and walked back to the car. On the way
we discovered the Gate of Mars, which was originally an Etruscan gate which got
tarted up by the Romans. It led into
subterranean passages within the city walls - very atmospheric, rather
reminiscent of Gormenghast.
Monday
9th April: hills around Lake Trasimeno
The name of the village where we stayed,
Panicale, means ‘in the heart of Pan’.
The next village was called Gioveto - named after Jupiter (Jove). We walked out of Panicale on the road towards
Paciano. There was a very different
flora: olive trees, wild cyclamens, bugle, hornbeams, tree heath, greater
periwinkle, comfrey, grape hyacinths. We
turned off the road and up the hill. We
didn’t quite reach the top of Monte Petrarvella, but we had lovely views of
Lake Trasimeno and could see the Monte della Laga and the Monte Sibillini in
the distance, which were snow-capped.
This is the highest and most central part of the Apennines. While we were eating our lunch, two yellow
swallowtail butterflies flew past.
Further down the hill, we saw lots of lizards, more flowers (Star of
Bethlehem, Italian Arum, Golden Hawksbeard) and a white swallowtail
butterfly. The geology was spectacular,
much folding of sedimentary rock.
Tuesday
10th April: Tarquinia
Visited the Etruscan necropolis at
Tarquinia, where the painted tombs are.
Many fascinating wall paintings, with dancing figures, musicians playing
lyres and double pipes, animals (stags, lions, leopards, horses etc), scenes of
revelry, landscapes. Amazing to think
that they were painted 2500 years ago.
We went in the Tombs of the Leopards, the Charons, Hunting and Fishing,
the Pulcella, the Gorgon, etc. The
Pulcella tomb was set into the hillside like a Mycenean tomb or a big burial
mound, but with the paintings inside the resemblance ended at the door. The Etruscans used only three colours of
paint: red, black, and bluish-green, but they used them to great effect. One tomb resembled a pavilion or tent, and
had a tartan ceiling and a frieze of animals running all around it just below
the ceiling. The Tomb of the Charons had
a bas-relief door and blue winged Charons either side of the door, with
inscriptions in Etruscan writing above their heads. Afterwards we drove into Tarquinia itself,
which was fairly desolate (so it hasn’t changed much since DH Lawrence visited
it and reached the same conclusion), but had an excellent museum of Etruscan
archaeological finds, including the sarcophagi from the Tarquinia tombs,
jewellery, pottery, mainly Greek style, but some with spectacular sexual
positions depicted on it, some of which looked physically impossible unless you
were levitating. The gold jewellery was
lovely; one necklace was made of gold acorns, another had what seemed to be
little jars. They also had Bronze Age
fibulae (cloak pins) from the Villanova culture on display; these were very
distinctive, with large round end-plates and spirally bows. They also had a collection of funerary urns,
some of which were in the shape of Etruscan houses, i.e. oval. The acropolis was on the hill opposite the
necropolis.
11th
April: Assisi
Well, we had to go and pay our respects to
the most Pagan of saints, Francesco. One
of his canticles speaks of Brother Sun and Sister Moon. Of course being a 12th century
saint he was a bit excessively ascetic, but on the whole he was alright. There is also the façade of a 1st
century temple of Minerva (of course the interior was converted into a church,
but the plan of the temple was preserved underneath the ghastly baroque
schmalz). Apparently Goethe admired the
façade, which he said was perfectly proportioned.
12th
April: Carsulae and Orvieto
Visited the remains of a Roman town at
Carsulae, which was abandoned in the first century CE. It was lovely there, very peaceful, lots of
birds singing. There was a Roman theatre
and an amphitheatre, so we recited various things in the theatre. I found several Lady Orchids there (very
spectacular) and there were lots of pink anemones and some Early Purple
Orchids. There was also a Temple of the
Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux), also known as the Gemini. Funnily enough we
passed a sign to the town of San Gemini later on - clearly a thinly-disguised
Pagan survival. Outside the city gate was a large round mausoleum, and a pointy
tower (both tombs). We also found Venus’s Looking Glass (Legousia hybrida), Star of Bethlehem, and anemones. The Via Flaminia (an ancient Roman road)
passed through the town, and cart ruts worn into the paving stones were still
visible. The line of the road was
heading directly towards a distinctive rounded hill on the horizon. Afterwards we drove from Carsulae to Orvieto
through the valley of the Lago di Corbaro, whose waters flow into the River
Tiber (Fiume Tevere in modern
Italian). Orvieto sits enthroned on a
huge outcrop of rock, selected by the Etruscans or the culture that preceded
them for its invulnerability to attack.
Etruscan walls, tombs, and cisterns have been found in the city. Beneath its cliffs is the Etruscan necropolis
of Crocifisso del Tufa. It is a
beautiful place, full of flowers and blossoming trees. In the late afternoon light it all glowed
like the Summerlands. The tombs were
arranged in little streets, their low trapezoid doorways had inscriptions in
Etruscan cut into the tufa blocks. The
older tombs had a conical stone point on the roof. Inside the construction was stepped. There were two types of tomb - the earlier
one had a stone couch for the deceased on the left hand wall and the rear
wall. The later type had a small
antechamber with orthostats (upright slabs) before the burial chamber proper. On the top of Orvieto’s rock is a the base of
a little Etruscan temple of unknown dedication, overgrown with grass and
flowers, perfectly proportioned according to the classical layout, with steps
sweeping up to the façade.
14th
April: Orvieto & Chiusi
We woke up to find that it was snowing, so
we decided to visit the Etruscan museum (Museo Claudio Faina) in Orvieto. There were many Greek-style vases, some with
multi-coloured winged Etruscan genies on the handles; also pottery masks which
would have adorned the edge of the roof of Etruscan temples, probably as
protective deities. When we emerged from
the museum it was sunny, though still cold, so we went to St Patrick’s Well, a
masterpiece of medieval engineering built in 1537, with two sets of interlocking
spiral steps, one going down and the other going up. On our way home we visited Chiusi, which once
boasted the tomb of Lars Porsenna (5th century BCE), who besieged
and took Rome after Tarquin’s expulsion.
The tomb had a huge labyrinth in it (one of the three famous ones of the
classical world) and four enormous conical towers (one at each corner) with
wind chimes on top. Weird. There are also tunnels - the remains of the
Etruscan water system - leading to a large, well-built Etruscan cistern beneath
the bell-tower of the cathedral. It was
very windy on top of the bell-tower, so presumably Porsenna’s wind-chimes must
have really annoyed the neighbours.
15th
April: Hannibal battlefield
Went to see the site of Hannibal’s victory
against the Romans near Tuoro, north of Lake Trasimeno. The Carthaginians and their allies (some of
whom came from as far afield as India) decided that Rome was gaining too much
power. Hannibal won the battle but not
the war, however, as the Carthaginian navy, which was meant to sack Rome,
stayed at home, and Hannibal was left to fight a sort of guerrilla war
throughout Italy for the next twenty years.
How different the world would have been if he had won the war… Afterwards drove to Cortona, which had very
little to recommend it, except that, just as we were leaving, we saw a sign for
an Etruscan hypogeum, so we visited it.
It was lovely - a little stone tomb surrounded by cypresses, slightly
tumbledown, but elegant nevertheless.
16th
April: Bagno di Vignoni
A wonderful place tucked away in southern
Tuscany where no-one would think to look for it. The
Rough Guide to Italy only deemed it worthy of a tiny paragraph (but then
the author seems to be interested only in frescoes). Hot sulphurous springs rise on the hillside
above the river Orcia, spilling minerals down the hillside and forming layer
upon layer of tufa. The main spring
rises in a large rectangular pool. There
we made an offering and I had a vision of the nymph of the pool. Further down the hillside, channels have been
cut into the rock, and the hot spring-water rushes through them. We joined a number of others in putting our
feet into the water - bliss. Later we
walked along the valley of the river Orcia, and saw another mineral stream that forms a series of
pools down the hillside. There were lots
of flowers: borage, shrubby globularia, spiked speedwell. Bagno Vignoni had its own micro-climate,
caused by the condensation of the steam from the hot springs, so that the whole
place was bathed in very soft rain.
ghhhhhybnnnnnnnnnn\\\\\5666666666 (Sabrina
the cat just climbed on the keyboard and typed this, but she can’t spell
‘gibbon’.)
17th
April: Ipogeo dei Volumni & Tempio di Clitunno
The Ipogeo dei Volumni (an Etruscan
underground chambered tomb near Perugia) turned out to be rather
atmospheric. When we entered the
building that had been erected over the entrance, it was full of stone cinerary
urns like small houses, carved with bas-reliefs of griffins, melusinae, moons,
bulls, medusae, or the goddess Vanth, a woman riding a dragon with a long curly
tail - she is the Etruscan goddess of the underworld. Some of the faces carved on the urns had
snaky hair and wings growing out of the side of their heads. There were also battle scenes carved on many
of the urns. The descent into the
hypogeum was like going into the underworld.
The soft volcanic rock was greeny-grey, and a woman’s face was carved
into it over the door of the chief chamber of the hypogeum, where there were
several sarcophagi still in situ.
Afterwards we went to the Tempio di
Clitunno (just off the main road between Assisi and Spoleto), a tiny temple
built into the hillside in the first century CE. The portico had 4 columns, the two bluish
ones in the middle with acanthus leaves and the two outer ones with spirals
winding up them. It had been turned into
a church at some time, which had evidently saved it from destruction, but it
still had atmosphere.
18th
April: Rome
The Forum was at first sight a confused
jumble of relics, until the individual buildings began to emerge from the
background: the last corner of the House of the Vestal Virgins, who tended the
sacred fire of Vesta; the temple of Saturn, where the god was kept chained
because the statue was believed to go walkabout at night, and it was feared he
might unleash chaos upon the Forum. He
was only let loose at Saturnalia, when topsy-turvydom was given free rein. We saw the Temple of Romulus (not the famous
founder of Rome, another one), whose porphyry pillars framed an ancient bronze
door. 19th century
archaeologists found the key to the doors, and the lock still worked after 2000
years. They made things to last in those
days… Next door was the temple of
Augustus and Faustina, whose pillars of cipollina
marble the early Christians tried to pull over with ropes soaked in bacteria
(the marks are still visible on the pillars).
Fortunately during the entire medieval period, the Forum was mostly
buried under silt which had been accumulated by successive floods of the Tiber,
so the pillars were impossible to pull over.
This was lucky, as the Forum was used as a quarry for building materials
for the churches of Rome. The Senate
house (the Curia) still has its original floor and a fair amount of its
original walls. Over this floor walked
Caractacus, the first Briton whose words entered written history. He was handed over to the Romans by
Cartimandua, queen of the Brigantes, after a glorious career of resisting the
Roman occupation, but he still managed to persuade them not to kill him, with
these eloquent words:
"If my
lineage and my rank had been matched by moderation in success, I should have
entered this city rather as a friend than as a captive. My present lot, if to
me a degradation, is to you a glory. If
I were dragged before you, after surrendering without a blow, there would have
been little heard either of my fall or your triumph. Punishment of me will be
followed by oblivion. But save me alive and I shall be an everlasting memorial
of your clemency."
Then we went to the Pantheon, the
magnificent temple built by Agrippa in 27 BCE and restored by Hadrian from 118
to 123 CE. It was saved from destruction
in the sixth century by the decision to convert it into a church. Its dome was the largest in the West until
Brunelleschi built the dome of Florence cathedral. A veritable forest of pillars hides the
entrance door. When we entered, it was
local noon, because the ray of sun coming in through the opening in the centre
of the dome was striking the door. An auspicious
moment. It is a magnificent building,
and we want it back. We uttered a small
prayer to the deities of Rome in the very centre, and gazed sadly on the empty
niches where the statues of the Roman pantheon would have been. There are many different colours of marble -
red, black, yellow, white, harmoniously arranged. Afterwards we went to the banks of the River
Tiber, and stood on the bridge. The we
walked to the Rotunda and the Temple of Hercules, which was one of the oldest
temples in Rome.
19th
April: Florence
Pretending to be Helena Bonham Carter in Room with a View, we walked to the
Duomo, Orsanmichele, and the Palazzo Vecchio.
This was amazing; it has a whole series of rooms with allegorical
frescoes by Vasari of the classical deities.
One of the most interesting rooms was the Room of the Elements, with a
wall for each element. The offering of
the first fruits to Saturn represents Earth; the birth of Venus represents
Water; Vulcan’s forge represents Fire; Air, on the ceiling, is represented by
Saturn assaulting Heaven, surrounded by allegories of Truth, Peace, Day, Night,
Justice, and Fame, and the chariots of the Sun and the Moon. Apparently Cosimo de Medici (who commissioned
the frescoes) was a Capricorn, so he liked to have depictions of the ruling
planet of his sun sign. There was also a
Terrace of Saturn. Afterwards we went
into Santa Croce, found Machiavelli’s tomb, and wandered around for quite a
while before we found Galileo’s tomb. We
managed to get a quiet moment reflecting on his life and thought before a tour
party turned up. Dante and Michelangelo are buried there as well. Then we went to the Boboli Gardens to commune
with Nature. We particularly liked the
Island Pond and the Knight’s Garden, and the whimsical Mustaccio fountain, a
rill where the water runs through a series of grotesque masks.
21st
April: Marzabotto
Marzabotto was a 5th century BCE
Etruscan colony south of Bologna (the northernmost extent of the Etruscans’
domain). It was a beautiful place, a
plateau surrounded by mountains and a bend in the river. It had been a very large city, with wide porticoed streets,
elaborate drainage systems, and an acropolis with several elegant temples. There were some lovely Lady Orchids there
too. Outside the eastern gate of the
city was the necropolis, with small tombs, about the right size for a crouch
burial or a cremation, with an egg-shaped stone on the roof. The plan of the Etruscan houses was different
from that of the Romans, with a long corridor leading to the central courtyard,
which had a well or water feature in the centre.
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