Sketches of Etruscan Places and Other Italian Essays
Last updated First US edition (publ. Viking, 1932)
Sketches of Etruscan Places and other Italian Essays, or Etruscan Places, is a collection of travel writings by D. H. Lawrence, first published posthumously in 1932. In this book Lawrence contrasted the life-affirming world of the Etruscans with the shabbiness of Benito Mussolini's Italy during the late 1920s.
In preparing these essays, Lawrence travelled through the countryside of Tuscany with his friend Earl Brewster during the spring of 1927.
The first U.S. edition, published by the Viking Press in 1932 and titled Etruscan Places, states, "A portion of this material originally appeared in Travel, and was copyrighted (1927) by Robert M. McBride & Company, Inc."
The volume published in 1932 included the following essays:
Cerveteri
Tarquinia
The Painted Tombs of Tarquinia 1
The Painted Tombs of Tarquinia 2
Vulci
Volterra
The Florence Museum
Further reading
Sketches of Etruscan Places and other Italian Essays (1932), edited by Simonetta de Filippis, Cambridge University Press, 1992, ISBN0-521-25253-9. The essays in this definitive scholarly text, based upon Lawrence's manuscripts, typescripts and corrected proofs, include those taken from the original collection. In addition, this volume includes other Italian essays such as:
David
Looking Down on the City
Europe Versus America
Fireworks
The Nightingale
Man is a Hunter
Flowery Tuscany
Germans and English
Lawrence's original intention was to publish his text with a sequence of related photographs. Copies of these pictures can be found in:
Etruscan Places, Foreword by Massimo Pallottino, Nuova Immaginare Editrice, Sienna, Third Edition, 1997, ISBN88-7145-080-9
Etruscan Places (1932), first American edition, without other essays, New York: The Viking Press.
External links
Internet Archive on-line edition of Etruscan Places: (encrypted!)
Project Gutenberg Australia on-line edition of Etruscan Places:
Etruscan was the language of the Etruscan civilization in the ancient region of Etruria, in Etruria Padana and Etruria Campana in what is now Italy. Etruscan influenced Latin but was eventually completely superseded by it. The Etruscans left around 13,000 inscriptions that have been found so far, only a small minority of which are of significant length; some bilingual inscriptions with texts also in Latin, Greek, or Phoenician; and a few dozen purported loanwords. Attested from 700 BC to AD 50, the relation of Etruscan to other languages has been a source of long-running speculation and study, with it mostly being referred to as one of the Tyrsenian languages, at times as an isolate and a number of other less well-known theories.
The Etruscan civilization was an ancient civilization created by the Etruscans, a people who inhabited Etruria in ancient Italy, with a common language and culture who formed a federation of city-states. After conquering adjacent lands, its territory covered, at its greatest extent, roughly what is now Tuscany, western Umbria, and northern Lazio, as well as what are now the Po Valley, Emilia-Romagna, south-eastern Lombardy, southern Veneto, and western Campania.
David Herbert Lawrence was an English novelist, short story writer, poet and essayist. His modernist works reflect on modernity, social alienation and industrialization, while championing sexuality, vitality and instinct. Several of his novels, Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow, Women in Love, and Lady Chatterley's Lover, were the subject of censorship trials for their radical portrayals of sexuality and use of explicit language.
Etruria was a region of Central Italy delimited by the rivers Arno and Tiber, an area that covered what is now most of Tuscany, northern Lazio, and north-western Umbria.
Cortona is a town and comune in the province of Arezzo, in Tuscany, Italy. It is the main cultural and artistic centre of the Val di Chiana after Arezzo.
Volterra is a walled mountaintop town in the Tuscany region of Italy. Its history dates from before the 8th century BC and it has substantial structures from the Etruscan, Roman, and Medieval periods.
"The Doctrine of Fascism" is an essay attributed to Benito Mussolini. In truth, the first part of the essay, entitled "Idee Fondamentali", was written by the Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile, while only the second part "Dottrina politica e sociale" is the work of Mussolini himself.
The province of Viterbo is a province in the Lazio region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Viterbo.
Tarquinia, formerly Corneto, is an old city in the province of Viterbo, Lazio, Central Italy, known chiefly for its ancient Etruscan tombs in the widespread necropoleis, or cemeteries, for which it was awarded UNESCO World Heritage status.
The Cambridge Edition of the Letters and Works of D. H. Lawrence is an ongoing project by Cambridge University Press to produce definitive editions of the writings of D. H. Lawrence. It is a major scholarly undertaking that strives to provide new versions of the texts as close as can be determined to what the author intended.
Mornings in Mexico is a collection of travel essays by D. H. Lawrence, first published by Martin Secker in 1927. These brief works display Lawrence's gifts as a travel writer, catching the 'spirit of place' in his own vivid manner.
Etruscan cities were a group of ancient settlements that shared a common Etruscan language and culture, even though they were independent city-states. They flourished over a large part of the northern half of Italy starting from the Iron Age, and in some cases reached a substantial level of wealth and power. They were eventually assimilated first by Italics in the south, then by Celts in the north and finally in Etruria itself by the growing Roman Republic.
Etruscan art was produced by the Etruscan civilization in central Italy between the 10th and 1st centuries BC. From around 750 BC it was heavily influenced by Greek art, which was imported by the Etruscans, but always retained distinct characteristics. Particularly strong in this tradition were figurative sculpture in terracotta, wall-painting and metalworking especially in bronze. Jewellery and engraved gems of high quality were produced.
A false door, or recessed niche, is an artistic representation of a door which does not function like a real door. They can be carved in a wall or painted on it. They are a common architectural element in the tombs of ancient Egypt, but appeared possibly earlier in some Pre-Nuragic Sardinian tombs known as Domus de Janas. Later they also occur in Etruscan tombs and in the time of ancient Rome they were used in the interiors of both houses and tombs.
The Tomb of Orcus, sometimes called the Tomb of Murina, is a 4th-century BC Etruscan hypogeum in Tarquinia, Italy. Discovered in 1868, it displays Hellenistic influences in its remarkable murals, which include the portrait of Velia Velcha, an Etruscan noblewoman, and the only known pictorial representation of the daemon Tuchulcha. In general, the murals are noted for their depiction of death, evil, and unhappiness.
The Tomb of the Whipping is an Etruscan tomb in the Necropolis of Monterozzi near Tarquinia, Lazio, Italy. It is dated to approximately 490 BC and named after a fresco of two men who flog a woman in an erotic context. The tomb was discovered and excavated in 1960 by Carlo Maurilio Lerici. Most of the paintings are badly damaged.
The Tomb of the Leopards is an Etruscan burial chamber so called for the confronted leopards painted above a banquet scene. The tomb is located within the Necropolis of Monterozzi, near Tarquinia, Lazio, Italy, and dates to around 470–450 BC. The painting is one of the best-preserved murals of Tarquinia, and is known for "its lively coloring, and its animated depictions rich with gestures," and is influenced by the Greek-Attic art of the first quarter of the fifth century BC.
The Monterozzi necropolis is an Etruscan necropolis on a hill east of Tarquinia in Lazio, Italy. The necropolis has about 6,000 graves, the oldest of which dates to the 7th century BC. About 200 of the tomb chambers are decorated with frescos.
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Etruscan sculpture was one of the most important artistic expressions of the Etruscan people, who inhabited the regions of Northern Italy and Central Italy between about the 9th century BC and the 1st century BC. Etruscan art was largely a derivation of Greek art, although developed with many characteristics of its own. Given the almost total lack of Etruscan written documents, a problem compounded by the paucity of information on their language—still largely undeciphered—it is in their art that the keys to the reconstruction of their history are to be found, although Greek and Roman chronicles are also of great help. Like its culture in general, Etruscan sculpture has many obscure aspects for scholars, being the subject of controversy and forcing them to propose their interpretations always tentatively, but the consensus is that it was part of the most important and original legacy of Italian art and even contributed significantly to the initial formation of the artistic traditions of ancient Rome. The view of Etruscan sculpture as a homogeneous whole is erroneous, there being important variations, both regional and temporal.
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