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ART. V.-1. Bullettino degli Annali, &c. per l'anno 1829-1837, &c. Roma.

2. Monumenti Inediti Pubblicati dall' Instituto sotto la direzione dei Signori Gerhard e Panofka. Roma, 1839-40.

3. Panofka Terracotten des Museums zu Berlin. Berlin, 1841. THE potter's art appears to be one of the earliest exercised by mankind, and the antiquity of its origin seems almost coeval with man himself. It appears equally in the most uncivilized with the most refined of nations; no manufacture, indeed, can be more generally practised, or more easily discovered, since it is contingent upon the presence of elements equally distributed over the whole habitable world.

To confer, however, form and beauty, to blend utility and ornament, has been limited to one race; and the wider our field of observation is carried, the more forcibly are we convinced that the genius of the Greeks alone shed the soul of art, the poetry of idea, over all it touched; and the excavations in Magna Græcia, in Sicily, in Athens, and in Milo, need no language to announce, that the elegant and unrivalled production of the potter's art there discovered are the gems and treasures of Hellas, and to that unequalled excellence none of the extinct races of Etruria can lay any higher claim than affording the soil to the hands which turned, and heads which planned these beautiful forms, being but clumsy imitators, at their best, of the productions of their exotic masters. It now becomes necessary to vindicate the claim of the Greek colonies, because among certain antiquaries, especially the natives of Italy, a predilection and a fiery zeal to assign these works of art to the Etruscans has prevailed. This spirit, which sprung up with the impostures of Annius of Viterbo, and at a later period, animated the Passeris, the Goris, and others, found favour with D'Hancarville, and at the present day as embodied in the dissertations of the Campanaris and other Italian anti-. quaries, has been happily designated the Etrusco-mania by the more sound-thinking Italians, such as Guasco and others, and has been fiercely opposed and clearly unveiled by G. Winckelman, Visconti, Eckhell, Millingen, and the corps of Prussian archæologists who compose the institute of archæological correspondence of Rome. For a period of nearly two centuries

the soil of Italy has been ransacked by the moderns for the fictile vases deposited in the tombs of its ancient masters, and the same spirit which animated the military colonists of Caligula at Capua to violate the ancient sepulchres, and the same denomination of persons at Corinth to plunder the tombs, in the hope of discovering ancient vases, even then esteemed curiosities and valuable as works of art, have lately spurred on excavators of all ranks, from the brother of Napoleon to his humbler fellow-dealers in gems, coins, and vases at Rome. The earlier excavations which had afforded the Hamilton collection, so called from being formed by Sir W. Hamilton, in 1806, at Naples, then plenipotentiary of this Court, and that of Levecsow, the Austrian governor of Naples in 1815, the 2100 objects which decorated the cabinets of the Museo Borbonico, and those on the shelves of the Vatican, had chiefly been obtained from excavations undertaken in Campania and Apulia, in the Provincia da Basilicata, in the Terra di Lavoro, to the south of Rome. Several vases had also been discovered in Sicily of archaic style; and the excavations of Lord Elgin in Greece, and of Mr. Burgon at Athens, had succeeded in obtaining a few vases from these localities. The vases found at this period had been brought into notice by the works of Thomas Dempster, in his "Etruria Regalis," by Lawrence Beger, in the account of the Brandenburgh Collection, and G. La Chausse, in 1690. Some vases were also published and republished by Caylus and Montfaucon; and the Hamilton Collection, the first public one formed in Europe, was edited by Tischbein and D'Hancarville, not, however, with that rigorous regard to truth which characterizes modern archæology. The first vases of this description accurately described, were the collection of Dubois Maisonneur, edited by Millin, and the vases of Cleuer; these were followed by our countryman Millingen's vases of Coghill,-the plates of which were, however, uncoloured, like Millin's and Millingen's "Ancient unedited Monuments," where the most interesting vases were both delineated and described with such elegance of art, learning, and soundness of judgment, as characterized a new epoch for the study of these objects. Single vases had also been given by Winckelman and Visconti, and Dodwell in his "Classical Tour;" but a new discovery on a fresh soil was destined to eclipse, both in number and interest, as to style and epoch of art, as to myth and story, the hitherto unrivalled treasures of all the European collections together. The places where these vases had been discovered were the tombs of the dead, seldom containing the ashes, because it was not usual among the people who used them to burn their dead, but deposited near

the sarcophagi, or close to the bodies of the deceased. In some localities the tombs were built or excavated in the rocky hills adjoining the old cities, as at the metropolis at Pæstum ; while in others, the Hypogaia were submerged beneath the plane of site, apparently by volcanic influence. The mode of excavating varied with the locality, but the fact of the places where they were found was well and popularly known. In 1828 Lucien Bonaparte, who had long retired from public life to the papal dominions, and had been pressed by Gregory XIV. to purchase the estates of Canino and Musignano, and created by the Pope Prince of Canino, discovered many of these objects on his estate. The reasons which induced him to search do not appear, but in 1828 he commenced excavating in the vicinity of the village of the Ponte de la Badia, at a short distance from Musignano. The locality was divided between the Prince, the Chevalier Durai, and a Signor Candelori; and in the course of 1829 the different excavations had produced three thousand vases. Circumstances, however, caused the disposal of a great part of the Canino collection into the hands of the Pope, the Cardinal Fesch, and the principal European museums. Subsequent to these excavations, extensive ones of a similar nature were undertaken by General Galassi, at Cervetri, the ancient Core or Agylla, at which place, two thousand black vases alone are said to have been discovered; and other searches promoted by the dealers, Campanari, Vescovallio, De Domenicis, at Tuscanei, Toscanella, Bari, and other places, produced several vases of inferior merit. The whole number of these at present probably amounts to between ten and fifteen thousand pieces, of different shades of style and value, but all interesting to the antiquary and the artist, in respect to style, epoch, and mythology.

In the mean time the influence of Niebuhr at Rome had laid the foundation of a society, soon destined to play a brilliant part in archæological researches. The Italians, on the whole but superficial Greek scholars, and but sparingly imbued with philosophical views, were not adequate to explain these works of art. The Etrusco-mania, too, infected them as a body, and the mystic school, whose taint is not yet extinguished, contributed to render them still more inefficient; but a society of Germans, founded by M. Gerhard and Kestner, supported by the influence and talents of the distinguished Prussian minister M. le Chevalier Bunsen, and the protection of the then Prince Royal, the present King, set themselves determinedly to work, and investigated to the foundation the discoveries then daily making. The most distinguished members of the society were,

Professor Welcher, Dr. Edward Gerhard, Theodore Panofka, the Baron de Stackelbergh, M. Bunsen; the Italian antiquaries Camnei Campana, Avellino, and Professor Nibbi; the French archæologists Lenormant, De Witte, and Raoul Rochette; while Millingen and Gell, among the English, chiefly contributed to the advancement of this branch of research, and the society enrolled under its banner the most distinguished names in Europe. The plan of its operations was, to publish Bulletini, to announce the fleeting information of the moment, which appeared monthly. Annali, issued yearly, containing the more important disquisitions, and Monumenti, consisting of plates, in folio, representing the most important monuments of ancient art. The Annali embrace a variety of archæological matter and disquisitions, generally upon single vases, and exhibit a series of valuable monographs; but the most luminous paper on vases is the "Rapporto Volcente" of Gerhard, a literary report, drawn up with the precision of a state paper, on the discoveries at Vulci. It classifies the whole subject of vases, till then vaguely and empirically examined, and is, in fact, up to the present hour, the only general work on the fictile art of Etruria. Since the Rapporto Volcente, however, important discoveries have been made, and the results of the whole from the time of La Chausse may be thus stated.

Extent of the Fictile region.

The fictile region extends from Etruria to the heel of Italy, and the vases are found in Tarquinia, at M. Rozzo, at Corneto, at Musignano, the P. de la Badia, at Cervetri, the ancient Core, Chiusi or Clusium, and Bolsinia or Volsena, Overeto, Viterbo, Perugia, Azezzo, Volaterra, and Populonia; at Atella Calvi and Telere, among the Samnites; at Ruvo and Bomarzo, in Apulia; at Bari Ceglie, Arpi, Bitordi, Conversano, in Lucania; at Capua, Nola, Pestum, Sorrentum, St. Agata dei Goti in Campania; and in the whole of the Provincia da Basilicata in the Terra di Lavoro; in the lower part of Italy, Locris and Tarentum, and along the coast of Calabria. Vases are said, indeed, to have been found as far north as Bologna; but Tuscany, the Papal States, and Naples, are the main boundaries of the fictile region. Great numbers of these vases have also been found at Agrigentum, and in other parts of Sicily. Athens, the Ionian Isles, and Corinth, with various tombs of Greece Proper, have furnished their small quota, and the same class of objects appear deposited in the tumuli of the Crimea. It must not be supposed that they are all referable either to the same epoch or people; the number found present distinctive marks for a generic classification into

styles of manufacture. Particular shapes, too, are allied with certain fabric and subjects, and a short acquaintance will render us familiar with the leading points of arrangement as to style.

Style.

It must not however be imagined, that the geographical arrangement of style is quite perfect, since while in certain localities the various styles seem mixed, and the same tomb has been known to present vases of different fabric and epochs; it has been supposed indeed, and partly proved, that in particular places the necropolis was divided between the producers of the different classes. Were it required to demonstrate that these vases were not executed by the Etruscans, a chimæra cherished by some to the present hour, the fact of the myths of all being Greek, the inscriptions with few exceptions being in that language, while the bronzes, the scarabæi and gems give us Greek myths with the Etruscan language, might be adduced. Neither do these objects present us with any of the puny Italian gods, much less heroes. Janus is unknown on them; Romulus and Remus are never seen or mentioned, and many of the so called Etruscan inscriptions are little more than Greek letters, arranged without sense to catch the eye. In certain instances, as in cock-fights, the letters perhaps are intended for the notes of the birds. It consequently does not need the authority of Winckelman and his followers, to prove that they were not Etruscan. But if a consent almost universal admits their Greek origin, a point still remains to be settled as to the place of their fabrication. First, it has been supposed that they were made upon the spots where found by the Pelasgo-Tyrrhenian and Greek colonists or invaders. Secondly, that they were importations from Greece Proper. The advocates of the first theory point to the variety of styles in different parts of the country, the discovery of a supposed manufactory, and the presence of the material upon the spot. Those who favour the second, triumphantly show the same description of vases found at Athens, in Sicily, in the Greek Isles, and even in the Crimea. But on the whole, the evidence is in favour of a local manufacture, because particular shapes, varnishes, and mode of handling are limited to certain localities,-an unanswerable objection to importations from Greece Proper, whose vases are clearly distinct in respect to style and execution from those of Italy; further, from the enormous quantity found in the tombs; again, from the acknowledged antiquity of the fictile art among the Etrurians and early settlers; lastly, the Roman annals men

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