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The land of the Etruscans
Here is a journey from Florence to Rome, two cities that represent very
different elements in the history of Italian art and culture as it has
developed through the centuries.
In making this journey we pass through
the land of the Etruscans, the fabled a Tyrrhenians of Herodotus.
They
came from the East, landed on the shores of Tuscany and quickly spread
out round the lakes and volcanic hills of the interior until they
reached the shores of the Adriatic.
They founded the first great civilization of Western Europe: they were
fond of the good things of life-luxury, jewels and good food. |
Their
cities rivaled each other in wealth and power, but they were not alive
to the need to make a common front against their half-barbarian and
turbulent neighbor, Rome which began to press up from the south. Its
march to world domination had begun. One by one the Etruscan cities were
conquered and burnt.
When the long history of Rome closed, ancient Etruria rose again and her
cities were rebuilt close to the sites of the ancient ones. With the
mediaeval communes the old individualistic and rather anarchic rivalry of
cities began again. Tuscany revenged defeated Etruria.
Even while they
shared in the flowering of the Renaissance, Florence and Rome maintained
their essential difference, the one measured and balanced, the other
grandiloquent and massive. In this land, which lies et the very heart of
Italy, there is a mingling of all kinds of elements Roman, Etruscan,
Medieval, Renaissance, in the abbeys and the cities.
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