A PERSISTENT NATIONALITY. 271 



gloomy nature of so much of the true Etruscan workman- 

 ship. From the very beginning they are strong, but 

 sullen. Solidity and power, rather than beauty and 

 grace, are what they aim at ; and in this, Michael 

 Angelo was a true Tuscan. If we look at the massive 

 old Etruscan buildings, the Cyclopean walls of FiesuUe 

 and Voltcrra), v^rith their gigantic unhewn blocks, or the 

 gloomy tombs of Clusium, with their heavy portals, 

 and then at the frowning fagade of the Strozzi or 

 the Pitti Palace, we shall see in these, their earliest and 

 latest terms, the special marks of Tuscan architecture. 

 * Piled by the hands of giants for mighty kings of old,' 

 says Macaulay, well, of the Cyclopean walls. * It some- 

 what resembles a prison or castle, and is remarkable for 

 its bold simplicity of style, the unadorned huge blocks of 

 stone being hewn smooth at the joints only,' says a modern 

 writer, of ]M'unellesclii's palatial masterpiece. Every 

 visitor to Florence must have noticed on every side the 

 marks of this sullen and rugged Etruscan character. 

 Compare for a moment the dark bosses of the Palazzo 

 Strozzi, the ' ui)Ye eiiery'ie ' of the Palazzo Vecchio, the 

 ' beautc sombre ct severe ' of the mediaeval Bargello, with 

 the open, airy brightness of the Doge's Palace, or the 

 glorious Byzantine gold-and-blue of St. Mark's at 

 Venice, and you got at once an admirable measure of this 

 persistent trait in the Etruscan idiosyncrasy. Tuscan 

 architecture is massive and morose where Venetian 

 architecture is sunny and smiling. 



Now, Tuscan religion has in all times been specially 

 influenced by the peculiarly gloomy tinge of the Tuscan 

 character. It has always been a religion of fear rather 



