The Etruscan civilisation, which flourished from the 8th until the 5th century BC in what is now Tuscany, is one of the most fascinating & mysterious in history. An uninhibited, elemental people, the Etruscans enthralled D.H. Lawrence, who craved their `old wisdom`, the secret of their vivacity & love of life. To him they represented the antithesis of everything he despised in the modern world, perhaps because their spontaneity & naturalness struck a chord with his own quest for personal & artistic freedom
- so often censured or repressed. Lawrence approaches the enigmatic Etruscans as a poet, passionately & searchingly, & so the reader is swept up in his luminous descriptions of a utopian world where dancing & feasting, art & music were everything. The exhilaration of Lawrence in his Etruscan adventures stands in stark contrast to his intimations of the darkness of Mussolini`s Italy
- at a time when Europe was beginning its inexorable drift towards tragedy. The last of Lawrence`s travel books, ` Etruscan Places` is an ephemeral & vivid account, replete with hauntingly evocative descriptions of the way of life of this once great civilisation.