Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2015
George Dennis’ The cities and cemeteries of Etruria, a massive two-volume work of over 1000 pages, was published towards the end of 1848, the British Museum’s copy (now the British Library’s) being received on 18 January 1849. It was quickly acclaimed as a literary and archaeological masterpiece (Rhodes 1973: 52–5; Pallottino 1955: 126, n. 1), which brought the then little-known Etruscans to life in the most vivid of ways. The fruit, in Dennis’ word, of extensive travelling in Etruria between 1842 and 1847, and of much work in the libraries of, in particular, Rome, it remains 150 years later an indispensable topographical source. Indeed, a 2nd, revised, edition appeared in 1878 (reprinted in 1883, but misleadingly entitled a 3rd edition), and a further version of the 1848 volume was published in J.M. Dent’s highly regarded ‘Everyman’ series in 1907.