The Feltre inscription stones

The inscription or inscriptions of Feltre are written on two slabs of sandstone. The early literature provides conflicting data on the find circumstances; Alberto Alpago Novello, who was involved in the restauration of the new building of the Museo Civico di Feltre, appears to be the most reliable source. He published an overview of archaeological findings in Feltre in 1963/1964, including a map, which shows both slabs A and B (no. 21, in the first part) to have been found behind (immediately north of) the Convent of San Pietro in Vincoli, later the Canossian convent. He writes that both slabs were discovered during restauration work in a tunnel system (a hypocaust; the slabs appear to have been reused as building material), at a depth of 3 m, in 1893. The find date is at variance with that given by Lattes 1901: p. 1137 in the publication of slab A and inscription. Lattes, citing from Francesco Pellegrini's letters (written in 1896), writes that slab A was found in early May of 1886, and makes no mention of slab B. Alpago Novello's information is rendered more plausible by the fact that 1893 is indeed the year in which the former Convent of San Pietro in Vincoli was restored to receive the Madri Canossiane. He stresses his conviction, based on accounts of bishop Mons. Mario Zanin and fellow historians Mario Gaggia and Antonio Vecellio, that slab B, which was only published in 1911 by Cordenons without any information beyond a drawing of the object (p. 228, n. 117 = slab B, 118 = slab A), was found together with and in the same spot as slab A. Morandi 1999: 91 took the pains to research the matter anew; the index cards consulted by him record for slab A the year 1893 "in un muro delle Canossiane", for slab B only "in Via Cornarotta". The latter, however, may be an indication not of the find spot, but of the depository, cp. Dal Zotto 1940, who states that slab B was for some time kept in a house in the Via Cornarotta (about 300 m north-west of the dome). Alpago Novello (p. 120), by the way, doubts this, and points out that eventually, both slabs were brought to and preserved in the Canossian Institute in the nearby village of Fonzaso (see also Lattes 1901: 1137), but the slabs having initially been separated might serve to explain why they weren't published together. Both slabs are likely to have been installed in the Museo Civico di Feltre upon its foundation in 1903, or on the occasion of its being moved to its new seat in the Palazzo Villabruna in 1922.

The details of when and in what circumstances the slabs were found are relevant to the question of whether (or how closely) they – and the letters they bear – belong together. Generally, the two sequences are assumed to be parts of a single inscription (Buonamici, Pallottino, Rix), but seeing as they were not found in the original context, this is not a given. They were even suspected of being forgeries due to what was conceived as clearly Etruscan linguistical content in a document found so far North, and especially because of the occurrence of the Etruscan name for Jupiter Tinia. This name is also documented on a column-shaped altar base bearing an inscription tinia tinscvil from ancient Volsinii, which had only been found a few years earlier (in 1880), also under the medieval dome (Vs 4.10 = CIE 4919; cp. also Vs 4.11 = CIE 4920 and Vs 4.13 = CIE 5168) (cp. Morandi 1999: 91). Despite the easterly findplace (left of the river Brenta), the Feltre finds were eventually included (as one inscription) by Whatmough into the Raetic corpus (no. 243 bis) in regard of both alphabet and language. Due to the clearly Etruscoid character of the language, the inscription was used as evidence for the connection of Raetic with Etruscan, then included by Pallottino in the TLE (no. 718). Pellegrini declared it to be Etruscan in 1954 (p. 463) and again in 1979 (p. 132); Rix was equally convinced and filed it as Etruscan in the ET (Pa 4.1), without the qualifications added by Pallottino. Based on Rix' opinion, it was not included by Schumacher, but again by Mancini (p. 281 f., no sigla) for the Raetic character of its letters.

[drawing in progress; meanwhile please refer to the images provided in the publications listed below]

Concerning the orientation of objects and characters: As shown in the drawing, the letters on both slabs are aligned on what was most probably the upper edge of the slab when it was in use – although some of them are inverted, the orientation of the inscriptions can be determined with some security. If the inscriptions are read sinistroversely (with the characters inscribed in the upper part of the slabs), only Alpha is inverted, whereas the other way round, both Nu and Epsilon would be upside-down. Furthermore, an examination of the slabs by the project staff in the autumn of 2014 has shown that there are remains of red paint to be seen in those parts of the lines that are closer to the edge; the paint is clearly visible on slab B, but only faint traces are left on slab A (mostly in the serifs). Seeing as the slabs appear not to have been displayed in the open since their finding, the colouring is unlikely to be modern, but may be assumed to be original. If this is the case, its condition can give a clue to how the slabs were put up: On an architrave, the elements would do greater damage to the lower parts of the letters, the upper parts being shielded by the entablature.

Slab A measures about 34 cm in length and 19 cm in depth. It is broken at both ends; at the end where the inscription appears to start, it is 10 cm high, becoming slightly narrower towards the other end, which measures 9.5 cm in height. There is a space before the first letter which suggests that the inscription is complete in the beginning. Slab B, also broken at both ends, measures about 26 cm in length and 6 cm in depth. The letters are roughly aligned on the edge; after final , a space suggests the end of the inscription. At this end, the slab is 10 cm high, at the other, 9.5 cm. The side of the slabs on which the characters are applied is made of a lighter layer of stone of about 2.5 cm thickness, which can be clearly discerned on both pieces. Although the height of the slabs and the presence of the lighter layer suggest them to be part of one original slab which narrowed slightly in the centre, the fact that they are of different depth makes the possibility of them having originally been one piece unlikely.

The characters, though basically similar, exhibit some decided differences: The letters on slab A have a consistent height of 4 cm, all reaching the edge of the slab. All recurring letters are written consistently (inverted , lopsided ). All lines are equipped with neat serifs, the punctuation marks are appropriately shaped like triangles pointing in writing direction. In contrast, the execution of the sequence on slab B must be called sloppy. The letters are taller than on slab A (5.5–5.7 cm) and none of them reaches the edge, indeed the distance grows as the inscription progresses. There are no serifs, and final is inverted. No trace of a punctuation mark can be detected before , though there is a small space available. Cp. Mancini, who observes that the two sequences are "incise da 'mani' differenti". If they are parts of the same inscription, the question of why the quality of craftsmanship deteriorates rather drastically remains open to conjecture – maybe the work of master and apprentice? All in all, the two sequences must be expected to belong together in some way, but are hardly fragments of one inscription. Cp. Mayr 1961c and Morandi 1999: 91 f.

Slab BSlabA
[]

Rix, regarding the sequence on slab A as the beginning and the one on slab B as the end of one and the same inscription, read Etr. ki aiser 'three gods', followed by the names of these gods, i.e. θinia 'Tinia/Jupiter', θi[ '?' (possibly 'Tiv/Tiu') and silnanz 'Silvanus'. The last name he conjectured to be spelled incorrectly, with instead of anticipating the second-to-last letter. He interpreted the last letter as a form of Zeta, arguing that a reading as Epsilon could be excluded because the letter would be inverted; disregarding the medial bar as being "offensichtlich" due to "Beschädigung des Steins" (Rix 1998: 58, n. 83). The bar, however, is definitely intentional. Apart from now two spelling mistakes, the name of Silvanus should be expected to be written with initial San in the North, though this rule may be suspended in Transpadania. Seeing as the sequence on slab B is unlikely to represent the end of the inscription on slab A, silnane must not necessarily be a theonym, and remains opaque. The presence of the Etruscan words ki, aiser and θinia can hardly be contested. In a letter to Schumacher (22. 3. 1990), Rix conceded the possibility of Etruscan and Raetic being so similar as to have identical words and theonyms, but doubted this. Cp., however, SZ-4.1 with a numeral and plural morpheme identical to the Etruscan equivalents. For the evidence for Etr. ais* vel sim. see Eichner 2012: 27 ff. (on Feltre sub Beleg B, with n. 72).

As concerns palaeographical peculiarities, the inscription features and in an orientation typical for Raetic, as well as shapes of Nu and Rho (and, unlikely, Zeta) not quite typical for late Etruscan. Tau appears in a curious shape halfway between Etruscan and North Italic . Should the last word indeed be śilvans as assumed by Rix, the writing of the sibilants associates the inscription with the Etruscan South. The dating 2^nd to 1^st c. BC given by Rix & Meiser in the revised edition (changed from the beginning of the 5^th c. BC in the 1991 edition), however, is far from certain. Morandi 1999: 92 and Adriano Maggiani in Gambacurta et al. 2002: 185 date the slabs/inscriptions to the 3^rd to 2^nd c. BC without giving reasons.

Images of the inscriptions can be found in Lattes 1901: 1135 (drawing, only A), Cordenons 1911: p. 228 (no. 117 and 118, drawings), Buonamici 1927: 509 (drawings), Mayr 1961c (photos), Pellegrini & Prosdocimi 1967: 445 f. (photos), Morandi 1982: 200 (drawings), Colonna 1997: fig. 10 (photo of slab A), Morandi 1999: Fig. 30 (53), LIR: 281 f. (photos and drawings), Gambacurta et al. 2002: 184 (No. 18) (photo and drawing). The two slabs may be examined at the Museo Civico di Feltre (inv. no. 38), where they are on exhibition in the lapidarium on the ground floor.

Further references: Campanile 1924: 155 and fig. 3 (with incorrect dating and location of the finding), Buonamici 1927: 509 f., NRIE: 64 and 67, Morandi 1982: no. 76, Colonna 1997: 174 f.

Bibliography

Alpago Novello 1963	Alberto Alpago Novello, "Ritrovamenti archeologici in Feltre", Archivio Storico di Belluno, Feltre e Cadore 34 (1963), 113–123.
Alpago Novello 1964	Alberto Alpago Novello, "Ritrovamenti archeologici in Feltre", Archivio Storico di Belluno, Feltre e Cadore 35 (1964), 16–22.
Buonamici 1927	Giulio Buonamici, "Rivista di epigrafia etrusca", Studi Etruschi 1 (1927), 505–522.
Campanile 1924	T. Campanile, "Feltre. Importante trovamento di epoca romana", Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità (1924), 149–157.
Colonna 1997	Giovanni Colonna, "Divinités peu connues du panthéon étrusque", in: Françoise Gaultier, Dominique Briquel (Eds), Les plus religieux des hommes. État de la recherche sur la religion étrusque. Actes du colloque international, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, 17–18–19 novembre 1992, Paris: 1997.
Cordenons 1911	Federico Cordenons, Silloge delle Iscrizioni Venetiche. Con note sugli antichi alfabeti e sistemi di scrittura usata dagli Italici e dagli Etruschi, Feltre: 1911.
Dal Zotto 1940	Attilio del Zotto, "Il Colle delle Capre di Feltre preromana", Archivio Storico di Belluno, Feltre e Cadore 12 (1940), 1209–1212.
Eichner 2011	Heiner Eichner, "Anmerkungen zum Etruskischen in memoriam Helmut Rix", Alessandria 5 (2011), 67–92. (= Atti del Convegno Internazionale Le lingue dell'Italia antica in memoriam Helmut Rix)
Eichner 2012	Heiner Eichner, "Sakralterminologie und Pantheon der Etrusker aus sprachwissenschaftlicher Sicht", in: Petra Amann (Ed.), Kulte – Riten – religiöse Vorstellungen bei den Etruskern und ihr Verhältnis zu Politik und Gesellschaft. Akten der 1. Internationalen Tagung der Sektion Wien/Österreich des Istituto Nazionale di Studi Etruschi ed Italici (Wien, 4. – 6. 12, 2008) [= ÖAW Philosophisch-historische Klasse, Denkschriften 440], Wien: 2012, 17–46.
ET	Helmut Rix, Gerhard Meiser (Eds), Etruskische Texte. Editio Minor [= ScriptOralia 23-24; Reihe A, Altertumswissenschaftliche Reihe 6-7], Tübingen: Gunter Narr 1991. (2 volumes)
ET 2	Gerhard Meiser, Valentina Belfiore, Sindy Kluge (Eds), Etruskische Texte. Editio minor, revised edition [= Studien zur historisch-vergleichenden Sprachwissenschaft Band 4], Hamburg: Baar 2014. (2 volumes)
Gambacurta et al. 2002	Giovanna Gambacurta, Daniela Locatelli, Luigi Malnati, Patrizia Manessi, Anna Marinetti, Giovanna Luisa Ravagnan (Eds), "Catalogo. Veneti antichi. Alfabeti e documenti", in: Giovanna Gambacurta, Daniela Locatelli, Luigi Malnati, Patrizia Manessi, Anna Marinetti, Giovanna Luisa Ravagnan (Eds), Akeo. I tempi della scrittura. Veneti antichi: alfabeti e documenti, 157–275.
Lattes 1901	Elia Lattes, "Iscrizioni inedite venete ed etrusche dell'Italia settentrionale", Rendiconti del Reale Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e Lettere 34 (Ser. II) (1901), 1131–1142.
LIR	Alberto Mancini, Le Iscrizioni Retiche [= Quaderni del dipartimento di linguistica, Università degli studi di Firenze Studi 8–9], Padova: Unipress 2009–10. (2 volumes)
Malnati 2002	Luigi Malnati, "Monumenti e stele in pietra preromani in Veneto", in: Giovanna Gambacurta, Daniela Locatelli, Luigi Malnati, Patrizia Manessi, Anna Marinetti, Giovanna Luisa Ravagnan (Eds), Akeo. I tempi della scrittura. Veneti antichi: alfabeti e documenti, 127–138.
Maras 2007	Daniele F. Maras, "Divinità etrusche e iconografia greca: La connotazione sessuale delle divinità solari ed astrali", Polifemo 7 (2007), 101–116.