The States and Union. [volume] (Ashland, Ohio) 1868-1872, 1869-08-04
From Arthurs Once Month.
The Etruscan Museum in the Vatican.

Crete had a Labyrinth, and Rom z
has Vatican. l wish 1 knew how
many times the Labyrinth could be colt
tained in the Vatican, and if it would
not seem n place for plain sailing in
comparison. When you read in Muir
ray that the Vatican has four thousand
rooms, it conveys no precise idea 10
your mind when you look at the huge,
irregular pile itself, which appears to
have no particular beginning and nev-
er to leave off, and makes St. Peters
look trig and tidy beside it, even then
you do not comprehend; when you
are told that for many Years The little
chapel of San Lorenzo, with Its SOL
emn frescoes by Fra Angelica, was
lost in this abyrinth-utterly lost out
of the memory of man, and was acci
dentally discovered by German artist,
who had to climb in through window
even then you are not fully alive to
it. Not until you have entered, and
toiled and wandered for hours, trying
to find some gallery or chapel to which
you have been a dozen times, and
which you proudly assured your con-
fiding friend you could ego straight
to-" do you begin to realize what the
Vatican is like. If you could only
clark" your way, as you do in other
wildernesses, there would be some
hope; but, if you ever do turn the
same corner twice, you never know it,
and the more you try to remember just
how you went the last time, the less
likely you will be to go that way
There are in the guide-books plans of
the Vatican. They are of use, ifcarc-
fully studied at home ; but once take
them out on the ground after you are
already a little confused, and you are
hopelessly lest. Your bewilderment
is instantly heightened by sense of
conspicuous humiliation, which is un-
bearable. Twos and threessand skies
and sevens of all nations come imme-
diately in sight, walking toward and
past you-heartless Levites, who know
the road. Never have L found the
Samaritan of the Vatican; no though
L have sat begging by the way. But
l have always comforted myself by
believing that the Levites also got lost
before they had gone far; in fact, l
myself have sometimes come upon
them, later. standing stock-still and
helpless, while 1, in my turn passed
by On the other side.
1t was on one Of the rawest of the
raw days for which winter in sunny
Italy is not, but ought to be famous,
that we saw the Etruscan Museum
Wo had walked round and round it,
and over it, and under it, till we had
almost ceased to believe in it, before
we found the door. Once in, we
shonld have known, even without the
inscription over the entrance, that we
were in the right place. On three
sides of the small entrance lay life-size
figures of terra Gotta; man crowned
with wreath of laurel, and two wom-
en- wearing necklaces, bracelets and
rings. They were a good deal chip
ped and knocked, these old Etrurians,
and one of the women must have been
a sad fright in her day if her portrait
were good one; but, true or false,
high or low, there they lay, three citi-
zens of Etruria, in solid shapes of
stone, as big as they were when alive,
and more famous than they ever
dreamed of being. On the walls were
fastened several horses heads, taken
from the entrance to somebody's tomb.
Among the Etrurians, it seems, the
horse was an emblem of the passage
of the soul to the other world; from
which it is fair to infer that breakneck
riding and driving are not modern in
ventions. In the middle of the vesti-
bule was a great scaldino, filed with
red-hot Goals; and the two custodi of
the museum stood over 1t, blue and
shivering, trying to warm their hands.
Of all fiimsy pretences, the scaldino is
the fimsiest and most pretentious.-
Why huge kettle of Goals, which
glow red to the eye, and breathe hot
and choking to the lungs, connot keep
you warm five minutes is unexplaina-
BILE; but it does not. You rub your
hands over them with vigor which
would warm you anywhere, and you
might as well spare yourself the un-
wholesome stifle of the scorched air.