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Fantasimus Directory 08
Page 06
The Etruscans now proceeded to lay siege to the city, which soon began to suffer from famine. Thereupon a young Roman, named C. Mucius, resolved to deliver his country by murdering the invading king. He accordingly went over to the Etruscan camp; but, ignorant of the person of Porsena, killed the royal secretary instead. Seized and threatened with torture, he thrust his right hand into the fire on the altar, and there let it burn, to show how little he heeded pain. Astonished at his courage, the king bade him depart in peace; and Mucius, out of gratitude, advised him to make peace with Rome, since three hundred noble youths, he said, had sworn to take the life of the king, and he was the first upon whom the lot had fallen. Mucius was henceforward called Scaevola, or the _Left-handed_, because his right hand had been burnt off. Porsena, alarmed for his life, which he could not secure against so many desperate men, forthwith offered peace to the Romans on condition of their restoring to the Veientines the land which they had taken from them. These terms were accepted, and Porsena withdrew his troops from the Janiculum after receiving ten youths and ten maidens as hostages from the Romans. Cloelia, one of the maidens, escaped from the Etruscan camp, and swam across the Tiber to Rome. She was sent back by the Romans to Porsena, who was so amazed at her courage that he not only set her at liberty, but allowed her to take with her those of the hostages whom she pleased.
In the parish church at Saas-Grund there are two altar-pieces which deserve attention. In the one over the main altar the arrangement of the Last Supper in a deep recess half-way up the composition is very pleasing and effective; in that above the right-hand altar of the two that stand in the body of the church there are a number of round lunettes, about eight inches in diameter, each containing a small but spirited group of wooden figures. I have lost my notes on these altar-pieces and can only remember that the main one has been restored, and now belongs to two different dates, the earlier date being, I should imagine, about 1670. A similar treatment of the Last Supper may be found near Brieg in the church of Naters, and no doubt the two altar-pieces are by the same man. There are, by the way, two very ambitious altars on either side the main arch leading to the chance in the church at Naters, of which the one on the south side contains obvious reminiscences of Gaudenzio Ferrari's Sta. Maria frescoes at Varallo; but none of the four altar-pieces in the two transepts tempted me to give them much attention. As regards the smaller altar-piece at Saas-Grund, analogous work may be found at Cravagliana, half-way between Varallo and Fobello, but this last has suffered through the inveterate habit which Italians have of showing their hatred towards the enemies of Christ by mutilating the figures that represent them. Whether the Saas work is by a Valsesian artist who came over to Switzerland, or whether the Cravagliana work is by a Swiss who had come to Italy, I cannot say without further consideration and closer examination than I have been able to give. The altar-pieces of Mairengo, Chiggiogna, and, I am told, Lavertezzo, all in the Canton Ticino, are by a Swiss or German artist who has migrated southward; but the reverse migration was equally common.
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