Tuscania

'About nine or ten miles to the east of Canino lies Toscanella, an Etruscan site of considerable interest. It may be reached in a carriage, either from Viterbo, Corneto, or Canino. This part of the great plain is diversified by oak-woods, which afford a pleasing contrast to the naked sweeps nearer the sea and the Ciminian Mount. Toscanella, with its many lofty towers, is the most conspicuous object in the thinly-peopled plain, and may be descried from a great distance.
Yet it stands on no eminence, but as usual on the level of the plain, nearly surrounded by profound ravines. It is a mean, dirty town; and its interest lies in its picturesque situation, its Etruscan remains, and its churches, which are choice specimens of the Lombard style. Here and there in the streets is a rich fragment of mediaeval architecture. The walls of the town are of the same period; no trace of the ancient fortifications remain, except on the adjoining height of San Pietro.
In such a bye-road town as this, it were folly to expect a good inn. On my first visit to Toscanella, I procured tolerable accommodation in the house of a butcher, where I had the advantage of being next door to the residence of the Campanari, whose names are known throughout Europe, wherever a love of Etruscan antiquities has penetrated. Latterly an inn has been opened near the Viterbo gate...'

This is the beginning of George Dennis's account of his stopover in Tuscania. Talking about its Etruscan past, unless other cities which disappeared altogether, or cities whose modern positioning is different from the one occupied during the Etruscan period, the location of Tuscania has always been more or less the same as today. In a well