. Mazes and labyrinths; a general account of their history and developments. mentions one at San Pietro, Toscanella, inthe cliffs below the Madonna dell Olivo, about half amile from the town. Here a long, sewer-like passageleads into a spacious chamber of irregular form, withtwo massive columns supporting its ceiling and a rudepilaster on the wall behind. But the peculiarity of thetomb lies in a cuniculus or passage cut in the rock, justlarge enough for a man to creep through on all-fours,which, entering the wall on one side after a long gyra-tion and sundry branchings, now blocked with earth,
. Mazes and labyrinths; a general account of their history and developments. mentions one at San Pietro, Toscanella, inthe cliffs below the Madonna dell Olivo, about half amile from the town. Here a long, sewer-like passageleads into a spacious chamber of irregular form, withtwo massive columns supporting its ceiling and a rudepilaster on the wall behind. But the peculiarity of thetomb lies in a cuniculus or passage cut in the rock, justlarge enough for a man to creep through on all-fours,which, entering the wall on one side after a long gyra-tion and sundry branchings, now blocked with earth,opens in the opposite wall of the tomb. These Etruscan labyrinths were all of a sepulchralcharacter, and one is naturally reminded of the catacombsof Rome, Paris, and Naples, to which, however, the termlabyrinth is not customarily applied. Strabo uses theword in reference to a catacomb near Nauplia, which hecalls the Labyrinth of the Cyclops. In Plinys time theword would appear to have been used to denote a windingpath following a more or less formal design of intricate40. Fig. 14. Poggio Cajella. Labyrinthine Cemetery. (Dennis) pattern, but not necessarily connected with sepulchralpurposes. When speaking of the Labyrinth of Crete he says, Wemust not compare this to what we see traced upon ourmosaic pavements or to the mazes formed in the fields forthe entertainment of children, and thus suppose it to bea narrow path along which we may walk for many milestogether, but we must picture to ourselves an edifice withmany doors and galleries which mislead the visitor. ...This passage shows that the term labyrinth had cometo have a fairly broad significance. It had long been usedin a metaphorical sense, even as we find Plato, over fourcenturies earlier, employing it to describe an elaborateargument. We also find it applied by extension to otherobjects, such as traps for fish, to judge by a certainpassage in the works of Theocritus. The only buildings to which the ancient writers ap-pl
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectlabyrin, bookyear1922
