In the
Quinto Alto locality are still to be found two of the most important Etruscan
architectural monuments: the great tholos tombs (with false cupola)
of Montagnola and Mula. They owe their fame to the splendid state of
conservation of the structures, which bear witness, for the orientalizing age
(7th century B.C.), to the utilisation of an architectural technique similar to
that of the monumental tombs at Mycenae, among them the so-called Treasure of
Atreus.
As compared
to other false-cupola tombs – those of Populonia, for instance – these tombs
differ not only in the circular layout of the main chambers, but above all in
their remarkable size: a diameter of 5 metres for the Montagnola Tomb, over 8
for that of Mula, dimensions involving notable technical difficulties as
regards construction and stability.
The
Montagnola Tomb appears as a tumulus with diameter of nearly 70 meters,
originally bounded by blocks of clay-rich limestone and waterproofed by a layer
of clay. It is entered through an open dromos (corridor)
leading to an inner corridor with pseudo-vault, on either side of which are two
small rectangular cells. A narrow ogive door opens into the main chamber, which
is covered by rows of progressively projecting slabs of stone resting on a
vertical socle 3 meters high. The
summit is closed by a square slab supported by a pilaster, which, however, does
not seem to have a true static function.
Entirely without a central support is the great tholos of
the Mula Tomb, which was incapsulated in the sixteenth-century Villa Garbi
Pecchioli to be used as a wine-cellar. With part of its dromos demolished
on that occasion, it differs from the Montagnola Tomb in that it has no socle
in the chamber. Perhaps constructed by the same workers as the other tomb, it
boasts the largest cupola known as of now in pre-Roman Italic architecture.
The Montagnola Tomb
The Mula Tomb
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento