Maremma Toscana, paese etrusco (Etruscan Places) | D. H. Lawrence in Tuscany

	“Myself, the first time I consciously saw Etruscan things, in the museum at Perugia, I was instinctively attracted to them. And it seems to be that way. Either there is instant sympathy, or instant contempt and indifference.Most people despise everything B.C. that isn’t Greek, for the good reason that it ought to be Greek if it isn’t. So, Etruscan things are put down as a feeble Graeco-Roman imitation.”[2]
	D. H. Lawrence
Sketches of Etruscan Places and other Italian Essays, or Etruscan Places, is a collection of travel writings by D. H. Lawrence, first published posthumously in 1932. In this book Lawrence contrasted the life affirming world of the Etruscans with the shabbiness of Benito Mussolini's Italy during the late 1920s. This "romantic and highly personal chronicle of the Etruscans, written while he was sick with tuberculosis in the late 1920s, is one of the most widely read English books on the Etruscans and perhaps his greatest triumph in the genre of travel literature. Lawrence spent a number of years in Italy at different times in his life. His relationship with Italy was based on passion, romance, and self discovery. Certainly Italy was a stark contrast to the conservative, puritan and repressive society in which Lawrence was raised: “Italy has given me back I know not what of myself, but a very, very great deal; she has found so much that was lost: like a restored Osiris.”[3]Contemplating his own mortality, Lawrence could not have found a more joyous people to study, since much of Etruscan funerary art celebrated life [4]. In preparing these essays, Lawrence travelled through the countryside of Tuscany with his friend Earl Brewster during the spring of 1927. The volume published in 1932 included the following essays: Cerveteri Tarquinia The Painted Tombs of Tarquinia 1 The Painted Tombs of Tarquinia 2 Vulci Volterra The Florence Museum

D. H. Lawrence in Tuscany

D. H. Lawrence, Etruscan Places. Travels Through Forgotten Italy, Nuova Immagine Editrice	David Herbert Lawrence, Paesi etruschi, Ristampe (prima edizione 1932)	Cerveteri. The Regolini-Galassi Tomb (from D. H. Lawrence, Etruscan Places)
With his friend Earl Brewster D. H. Lawrence traveled through Etruria and during his journey visited Cerveteri, Tarquinia, Vulci, Volterra. Italy was his second homeland and he often stayed there. In the Maremma Toscana, the southern part of Tuscany, he found a sounding board for his restless and melancholic soul. “The tombs seem so easy and friendly, cut out of the rock underground. One does not feel oppressed, descending into them. It must be partly owing to the peculiar charm of natural proportion which is in all Etruscan things of the unspoilt, unRomanized centuries. There is a simplicity, combined with a most peculiar, free-breasted naturalness and spontaneity in the shapes and movements of the underworld walls and spaces, that at once reassures the spirit…They leave the breast breathing freely and pleasantly, with a certain fullness of life. Even the tombs. And that is the true Etruscan quality: ease, naturalness, and an abundance of life, no need to force the mind or the soul in any direction.”[5]

Podere Santa Pia, Ingrandire mappa

Further reading Sketches of Etruscan Places and other Italian Essays (1932), edited by Simonetta de Filippis, Cambridge University Press, 1992, ISBN 0-521-25253-9. The essays in this definitive scholarly text, based upon Lawrence's manuscripts, typescripts and corrected proofs, include those taken from the original collection. In addition, this volume includes other Italian essays such as: David Looking Down on the City Europe Versus America Fireworks The Nightingale Man is a Hunter Flowery Tuscany Germans and English Lawrence's original intention was to publish his text with a sequence of related photographs. Copies of these pictures can be found in: Etruscan Places, Foreword by Massimo Pallottino, Nuova Immaginare Editrice, Sienna, Third Edition, 1997, ISBN 88-7145-080-9
The Podere Santa Pia holiday home is located in the Tuscan Maremma, in the municipality of Cinigiano, near Montalcino and the Abbazzia Sant'Antimo, in the midst of intact nature, surrounded by hills, meadows, woods and the Mediterranean scrub. Immersed in the lush, quiet, Tuscan countryside, 3 km from Castiglioncello Bandini, is Podere Santa Pia, a holiday home surrounded by the aromas of the Mediterranean scrub and with a panorama of rare beauty. The nature and the paths that surround this holiday hou se are considered the ideal place for those who love silence and tranquility.




Andrea Carandini, Mariagrazia Celuzza, Elizabeth Fentress, Ida Attolini, Paesaggi d'Etruria. Valle dell'Albegna, Valle d'Oro, Valle del Chiarone, Valle del Tarone. Progetto di ricerca italo-britannico seguito allo scavo di Settefinistre, Storia e Letteratura, 2002 Keith Sagar, Art for Life's Sake': Essays on D.H.Lawrence Critical, Cultural and Communications Press, 2011. Lisa C. Pieraccini, "The English, Etruscans, and 'Etouria': The Grand Tour of Etruria," Etruscan Studies 12: 3-18 (2009). Project Gutenberg Australia on-line edition of Etruscan Places [1] Photo by Traveling Guide © All rights reserved [2] Lawrence, D. H. 1999. Sketches of Etruscan Places and other Italian Essays. London, p. 31. [3] Lawrence, D.H. 1997. Sea and Sardinia. Edited by Mara Kalnins. London, 117: 14-17. [4] Lisa C. Pieraccini, "The English, Etruscans, and 'Etouria': The Grand Tour of Etruria," Etruscan Studies 12 (2009), p. 12. [5] Lawrence 1999, 19. Fonte copertura di 'Art for Life's Sake': Essays on D.H.Lawrence Critical, Cultural and Communications Press, 2011.
° This article incorporates material from the Wikipedia article Sketches of Etruscan Places and Other Italian Essays, published under the GNU Free Documentation License.