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Two sarcophagi, one of basalt, the other of alabaster, were placed at right angles to the walls, partially inclosing a small space. Within this inclosure, bowed over a stone table, sat a woman, writing. At either end of the table a mummy case, one black, the other gilt, stood upright. The boy halted just outside this singular private office, and the woman rose and came toward them.
theatre; after which I walked a little out of the town to the Aliscamps, the old Elysian Fields, the meagre remnant of the old pagan place of sepulture, which was afterwards used by the Christians, but has been for ages deserted and now consists only of a melancholy avenue of cypresses lined with a succession of ancient sarcophagi, empty, mossy and mutilated.
He approached a great window, from whence he could see Castel Sant' Angelo and the innumerable tiny lights dotted over the lower city, while higher up, and more brilliant, those of the Quirinal shone against the horizon. Not the sight of illumined Rome, but the sight of a low and narrow bench, running along below the cippi and the sarcophagi, calmed his spirit.
In several the first ideas for some of the final forms may be seen, but one point is very important: in almost every case the sarcophagi are large enough to support the figure or figures to be placed upon them, and never do we see that uncomfortable arrangement by which the figures appear to be sliding off their supports.
The sarcophagi were to support portrait statues of the Dukes and Popes, of Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano. At the foot were to be six rivers, two under each tomb—the Arno, Tiber, Metauro, Po, Taro, and Ticino. The drawings go to prove that the architectural background, as we see it now, is as incomplete as it looks.
I ought to add, that on one of these sarcophagi, bearing the oft repeated subject of the good Shepherd feeding His sheep, I found, as the companion group, a female figure in the act of feeding birds which are fluttering to her feet. It is equally touching and beautiful in either significance. Three examples of these figures occur to me.
Before you and on each side, through the thick brown light, loom three enormous barbaric sarcophagi, containing the remains of potentates of the Lower Empire. It is as if history had burrowed under ground to escape from research and you had fairly run it to earth.
It may be remarked, in connection with this last mentioned tomb, that a Roman statuary had his workshops for the manufacture of sepulchral monuments and sarcophagi on the Appian Way, which were of great extent, judging from the quantity of sculpture, finished and unfinished, found on the spot.
Special attention may be directed to the groups of angels attendant on the Creator in His last day's work; to the "Adoration of the Shepherds," distinguished by tender and idyllic grace: and to the "Adoration of the Magi," marked no less by majesty. The dead breaking open the lids of their sarcophagi and rising to judgment are justly famous for spirited action.
The altars are older than the foundations: on one of them are groups of pillars fastened together by a species of Runic knot, such as are to be found in the rudest carving of the Hebrides; ancient sarcophagi and bassirilievi line the walls; yet round one of the recesses of this primitive-seeming sanctuary I found a branch of the Ampelopsis quinquefolia, our Virginia creeper, which I had fondly believed a native of America, painted with the utmost fidelity five hundred years before America was heard of, its five dentated leaves and jointed sprays in colors as rich as the masses we had seen trailing over the marble banisters of the villas on Lake Como, dyeing the pellucid water with their scarlet shadows.
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