ETRUSCAN JEWELLERY
The Etruscans appear to have had a peculiar passion for jewellery.
Even in early times, when the excessive use of personal ornament was
considered a mark of effeminacy, they were famed for their jewels.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, speaking of the Sabines, says that "they
wore bracelets on their left arms, and rings, for they were a
gold-wearing nation, and not less effeminate than the Etruscans." Like
most other nations of antiquity, the Etruscans dedicated to the service
of the dead costly articles of adornment which they had worn when
living; though the greater number of these jewels are flimsy objects
made for mortuary purposes. On Etruscan sarcophagi the men have torques
about their necks, while the women have sometimes torques, sometimes
necklaces, long earrings, and bracelets, and both sexes have many rings
on their fingers.
Though systematically rifled in former times, Etruscan tombs have yet
preserved to the present day a large number of jewels, sufficient to
prove that the possibilities of gold were never more thoroughly grasped
than by the Etruscans. Their earlier jewellery--for the later is much
coarser--shows extraordinary fineness and elaboration of workmanship.
They possessed a peculiar art of fusing and joining metals by the use of
solvents unknown to us, which rendered invisible the traces of solder.
Surface decoration was produced by the interweaving of extremely
delicate threads of gold, by a sparing use of enamel, and particularly
by the soldering together of particles or globules of gold of such
minuteness and equality as to be scarcely perceptible to the naked eye.
Animal or human forms were skilfully executed in relief by repoussé, or
produced in the round with the assistance of solder. But the chief
characteristic of their jewellery, and that which mainly distinguishes
it from the Greek, is its ornamentation with grains of gold of
microscopic size.
The method of decorating the surface of gold with fine granules,
which is usually termed granulation, is one which was in favour
among all ancient gold workers in the countries bordering on the
Mediterranean. The "pulvisculus aureus," as it was called in Italy, came
into common use towards the close of the Mycenæan Age, at a time when
the Phoenicians were making their influence felt in Cyprus, Sardinia,
and Etruria, where examples of this method of gold working particularly
abound. We are probably right in assuming that this granulated work was
indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean, and that, as it has been found
upon jewels of undoubted Phoenician origin, the Phoenicians were not
uninstrumental in disseminating it along their trade routes. Cellini, in
his description of the process of granulation in his _Trattato dell'
Oreficeria_, speaks of each grain being made separately and soldered on,
a technique probably practised by the ancient jewellers. But in the case
of the minutest Etruscan work, it is not improbable that the grains--at
first natural, though subsequently artificial--were sprinkled like dust
over the parts of the surface which had to be covered. This fine
granulation belongs only to the early and best Etruscan jewels. Larger
grains were used for later work.
It is remarkable that the secrets of the old Etruscan goldsmiths have
never been wholly recovered in Europe. That the art of granulation,
though mentioned by Cellini, was not generally practised by the
goldsmiths of the Renaissance is evident from the examples of their work
that have survived. In recent years attempts have been made to revive
the art; but as the well-known productions of Castellani the elder, with
his Alessandro the connoisseur and Augusto, and of Carlo Giuliano, are
connected with the later history of jewellery, further reference will be
made to them subsequently.
As might be expected, important collections of Etruscan jewellery are
preserved in museums close to the sites where the objects themselves
have been discovered. One of the most extensive of such collections is
that in the museum of the Vatican, which was brought together by Pope
Gregory XVI from the districts which till 1870 formed part of the papal
domain. The British Museum, the Louvre, and the museums of Berlin and
Munich all contain a large number of ornaments from the old cemeteries
of the Etruscan races. The earliest Etruscan jewellery coincides roughly
with Greek work of the late Mycenæan period, and betrays, from the
religious symbols expressed on it, a marked Oriental or Egyptian
influence. At a somewhat later date, that is from about 500 to 300 B.C.,
it is evident that the Etruscans largely followed Greek models, or
imported from Greece, especially from Ionia, some of the finest artists
in the precious metals. Etruscan jewellery can then be divided into
three distinct styles: the primitive, somewhat Oriental in character,
and of fine but not artistically attractive work; the later, when the
primitive art had been subjected to Hellenic influence and produced work
of the highest artistic and technical excellence; and the latest style,
in which Greek art, still followed, but in a vulgarised form, results in
ornaments noticeable for their size and coarseness of execution.
[Illustration: _PLATE VI_ ETRUSCAN JEWELLERY
(PINS, NECKLACES, EARRINGS)]
The Etruscans appear to have paid particular attention to the
decoration of the head. Following a custom in vogue throughout Greece,
men as well as women adorned themselves with fillets; while women also
wore highly ornate hair-pins, with heads shaped like balls, acorns, and
pomegranates, decorated in granulation. Many of these pins must have
served to fix the diadems and fillets for which the Etruscans appear
to have had an especial liking. The latter are composed for the most
part of the foliage of myrtle, ivy, and oak, in accordance with the
symbolical ideas attached to these leaves. The greater number are of
plate of gold, so thin and fragile that they can only have been employed
as sepulchral ornaments--like the wreath of ivy leaves and berries of
thin gold still encircling the bronze helmet from Vulci in the Room of
Greek and Roman Life in the British Museum, and a similar wreath of
bracteate gold around a conical bronze helmet in the Salle des Bijoux
Antiques of the Louvre.
Earrings of the finest period bear a striking similarity to Greek
ornaments of the same date. The first type is penannular in shape, one
end terminating in the head of a bull or lion, and the other in a point
which pierces the ear. To this ring is next attached a pendant. In the
third type the hook which pierces the ear is hidden by a rosette or disc
from which hang tassel-shaped appendages, and in the middle between them
small animals enamelled white, such as the geese, swans, and cocks in
the British Museum, and the peacocks and doves in the Campana Collection
in the Louvre. Earrings of another class are saddle-shaped, formed like
an imperfect cylinder, one end of which is closed by an open-work rose
cap, which completely enclosed the lobe of the wearer's ear. The latest
Etruscan earrings, of pendant form, are mostly of great size and in the
shape of convex bosses.
In examining the very primitive necklaces and other ornaments that have
been discovered in various tombs in Italy, especially in Etruria and
Latium, the extraordinary abundance of amber at once attracts attention.
The amber of this ancient jewellery of Italy has accessories, sometimes
of gold, and more frequently of silver, or else of an alloy of gold and
silver termed _electrum_. A noteworthy early necklace of these materials
found at Præneste, and now in the British Museum, is composed of amber
cylinders, and pendent vases alternately of amber and electrum (Pl. VI,
2).
Though the majority of Etruscan necklaces aim at largeness of display,
some are as delicate and refined as the best Greek ornaments. From a
round plaited chain in the British Museum hangs a single ornament--the
mask of a faun whose hair, eyebrows, and wavy beard are worked with fine
granulation; another pendant is a negro's head on which the granules are
disposed with exquisite skill to represent the short woolly hair (Pl.
VI, 5). Finer even than either of these--and a remarkable example of the
combination of the two processes of filigree and granulation--is a neck
pendant in the form of a mask of Dionysos (Bacchus) in the Campana
Collection in the Louvre. On this the curls of hair over the forehead
are represented by filigree spirals, while the beard is worked entirely
in the granulated method.
A large number of necklaces have evidently been produced simply for
sepulchral purposes, for they are composed, like the majority of crowns,
of the thinnest bracteate gold in the shape of rosettes and studs strung
together.
The chief characteristic of Etruscan necklaces is their ornamentation
with pendent _bullæ_. The bulla, from the Latin word meaning a bubble,
was usually made of two concave plates of gold fastened together so as
to form a globe--lentoid or vase-shaped-within which an amulet was
contained. In Etruscan art both men and women are represented wearing
necklaces and even bracelets formed of bullæ. Occasionally, instead of a
bulla, is some such object as the tooth or claw of an animal or a small
primitive flint arrow-head, which served as an amulet.
[Illustration: _PLATE VII_ ETRUSCAN JEWELLERY
(BROOCHES, DIADEM, BRACELET, RINGS)]
Of bracelets of primitive work are a famous pair in the British Museum,
which were discovered in a tomb at Cervetri (Cære). They are composed
of thin plates of gold measuring 8 inches in length by 2¼ inches in
width, divided into six sections, ornamented with scenes thoroughly
Assyrian in character, indicated by lines of microscopic granulations
(Pl. VII, 4).
Etruscan fibulæ of gold are generally formed of a short arc-shaped bow
and a long sheath for the pin decorated with minute granular work. Upon
the upper surface are often rows of small models of animals. Upon the
sheath of a large early fibula found at Cervetri (Cære), and now in the
British Museum, is a double row of twenty-four standing lions (Pl. VII,
1). The bow of the later fibulæ is sometimes in the form of a single
figure, as that of a crouching lion. A considerable number of small
fibulæ of this type appear to have been worn in rows down the seam of
the dress. Two series of these, the one numbering twenty-one and the
other thirty-nine, both found in a tomb at Vulci, are in the Louvre.
The Etruscans appear to have had a special love for rings; every finger,
including the thumb, was covered with them, and a considerable number
have been discovered in the tombs. The majority are composed of scarabs
mounted much in the same style as those of the Egyptians. One of the
finest Etruscan rings in the British Museum is formed by two lions,
whose bodies make up the shank, their heads and fore-paws and supporting
a bezel in filigree which holds the signet stone--a small scarabæus
charged with a lion regardant. Another remarkable class of Etruscan
rings has large oval bezels measuring upwards of an inch and a half
across. These are set with an engraved gem, and have wide borders
ornamented with various designs. An example in the British Museum shows
a pattern formed of dolphins and waves.