Exhaustive researches are still necessary to settle finally the disputes as to the antiquity and origin of these constructions. There are three hypotheses: either they derive their origin from the megalithic constructions of the Neo lithic Age, or are an importation of the JEgeo Mycenean architecture, or are an imitation of the Hellenic fortifications of later times. , Central Italy was soon made to feel the fluence of a remarkable people who, inhabiting a beautiful country, were endowed to an un usual degree with a love of life and the artistic spirit.
The Etruscans present a problem in the history of ancient Italy which the unwearying efforts of learned men of two centuries and vast and profound excavations have not yet been able to solve. Apparently the better theory, however, considers the Etruscans a peo ple differing from the other Italian races, as immigrants perhaps from Asia Minor. All students agree that the ancient inhabitants of Tuscany developed on Italian soil a peculiar form of civilization in which art had a great field of expansion and which exercised a power ful influence on the neighboring or subject peoples. At the end of the 10th century B.C., or before that, we find in Etruria new forms in architecture and in the industries, which are the most ancient arts.
Civil and military architecture in Etruria was displayed in the fortified cities, where they had not the structure and the archaic forms of the so-called Pelasgic cities, although the same roof construction prevailed. The most ancient instances are those of Ruse Cosa and Fi esole; at Populonia we find the intermediate phase and at Volterra and Cortona the more progressive form.
In architecture, and especially in sepulchral architecture, there are remarkable survivals of Mycenean types. The decorations of the gate of Felsina with two heraldic animals facing each other has a parallel in the Gate of Lions at Mycene, and true and regular tholoi, or circular buildings, such as the sepulchral cham bers of the Tumulus of Petriera near Vetulonia, and the tomb of Cuma, recall as do some others the barbican vaults in the celebrated treasuries' of Mycene. Still more characteristic bee-hive forms are seen in the ancient Tulliantim at Rome and ogival sections of the fountain at Tusculum, which recall the Mycenean roof structure. Later on, as in Greece, the sepul chral vault was more commonly in rectangular form with sloping roofs, copied from the houses, of which we have effigies on several urns and sarcophagi.
One of the merits of Etruscan architecture is, that it developed curved lines in roofs, fol lowing a principle of Oriental architecture, that is to say, the invention of the arch and the dome formed by wedge-shaped pieces of the building material converging toward a common centre.
The most ancient examples, however, do not appear to go farther back than the 6th or 7th century ii.c., as for instance the so-called tomb of Pythagoras, near Cortona.
On these principles the Etruscans were able to build roads, bridges, subterranean tunnels for drainage or aqueducts, and to build gates in their cities of enormous size, as, for instance, that of Volterra or the later one of Perugia.
As regards the edifices, we must suppose that the early wooden structures continued until considerably later times and we see imita tions of them also in stone, as in the section of a tomb of Corneto. Through maritime com merce with the Orient and Greece, the Etruscan architecture developed on Greco•Ionic models, of which the Tuscan style affords an example.
Recent discoveries prove that even in more modern buildings the foundations were con structed after the Mycenean pattern. The ex cavations at Marzabotto show the plant of the Etruscan cities. The city faces east and west; its two principal streets, the Kardo and Decu minus, formed a cross; in the centre of the cross is the Templum, and the four principal gates are at the extremities of these two cross streets. The Etruscan temple was rectangular upon a high base, sometimes a simple cell with pronaos or portico in front of the cella, but more often with three alcoves for the three idols, Jove, Juno and Minerva.
The form of the Italic and Etruscan dwell ing differs from the Greek dwelling, is Oriental in its origin, and was brought into Italy by the Etruscans. This is the origin of the Roman domus, though so modified that the primitive form is almost unrecognizable.
In Etruria, plaster was used chiefly for the ornamentation of edifices, especially of temples, in which terra-cotta ornamental designs in dif ferent colors were applied. But whether owing to the lack of a material suitable for sculpture, such as marble, whether through the practice gained in this decorative sculpture, coroplastic made great progress in Italy, as we see in the written traditions which celebrate, for instance, Damophilos and Gorgasos, the decorators of the temple of Ceres, and in the museums where it figures as the principal art of the Etruscans. Remarkable examples of the archaic period are the sarcophagi in the Louvre, the British Mu seum, and the Museum of the Villa Giulia in Rome, and the Ionic decoration discovered in recent times on the face of the temples of Luni, of Falerii and of Arcevia.