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Valley Tombs of Norchia The great Etruscologist George Dennis and his companion Ainsley both sketched and painted extensively in Etruria during their travels in the 1840's. Dennis wrote the following account of the valley of Norchia and its temple tombs near Viterbo, "In its present state of utter desolation, it has charms as much for the artist as for the antiquary. Who has visited this spot can forget the ruined church of Lombard architecture, wasting its simple beauty on the stupid gaze of the shepherd, the only frequenter of these wilds? Who that has an eye for the picturesque, can forget the tall cliffs on which it stands - here, perforated so as to form a bridge, there, dislocated, and cleft to their very base,- the rich red and grey tufo half-mantled with the evergreen foliage of cork, ilex and ivy?" |
the Lombard church |
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The carved cliff tombs known as "dadi" or dice shaped |
Who can forget the deep glens around, ever wrapt in gloom, where the stillness is broken only by the murmurs of the stream, or by the shriek of the falcon - solitudes teeming with solemn memorials of a past, mysterious race - with pompous monuments mocking their very purpose; for, raised to perpetuate the memory of the dead, they still stand, while their inmates have for ages been forgotten? He who has visited it must admit, that though nameless and un-chronicled, there are few sites in Etruria so interesting as this."
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The "Tao" or 'T' shaped false door leading to the hereafter |
Dennis' account is just as true today. When we were there in mid-May we were sitting on a cliff in silence as the sun went down behind the ruined castle when we heard two men chattering as they walked. Not two but one man burst through the bushes talking to himself. An ancient shepherd holding a small bunch of wild asparagus to which his solitary conversation had been directed, now addressed me in toothless dialect the gist of which was that it wasn't advisable to go into the valley after dark as 'lupi', wolves no less although he may have meant wild dogs, were living in the caves and were coming out at night to attack his sheep! |
The umbrella pines leading to Norchia
