LANZI, Luigi (1732-1810), a writer on Etruscan antiquities and on the history of Italian painting, was born in 1732, and educated as a priest. In 1773 he was appointed keeper of the galleries of Florence, from which time his attention seems to have been divided between the study of Italian painting and the study of Etruscan antiquities and language. In the one field his labours are represented by his Storia Pittorica della Italia, the first portion of which, containing the Florentine, Sienese, Roman, and Neapolitan schools, appeared in 1792, the rest in 1796. The work is translated by Roscoe. In archaeology his great achievement was the work entitled Saggio di lingua Etrusca, 1789, followed by Saggio delle lingue Ital. Antiche, 1806. In his memoir on the so-called Etruscan vases (Dei vasi antichi dipinti volgarmeηte chiamati Etruschi, 1806) Lanzi rightly perceived their Greek origin and characters. What was true of the antiquities would be true also, he argued, of the Etruscan language, and the object of the Saggio di lingua Etrusca was to prove that this language must be related to that of the neighbouring peoples—Romans, Umbrians, Oscans, and Greeks. It is admitted that he was wanting in critical method after a certain point, though at the same time much of the impulse he gave to study arose from his general method of inquiry. It is a sign of the recognition he received that he was allied with E. Q. Visconti in his great but never accomplished plan of illustrating antiquity altogether from existing literature and monuments. His notices of ancient sculpture and its various styles appeared as an appendix to the Saggio di lingua Etrusca, and arose out of his careful and minute study of the treasures then added to the Florentine collection from the Villa Medici. The ...