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South Italian Red-Figure Calyx Krater
475-425 BC
[Shefton Collection 66]
Monck visited the Temple of Artemis on Corfu. Here Artemis is shown as a huntress with boots and two spears alongside her twin brother Apollo. In the Greek world the krater was a mixing vessel for wine and water. This example would have been a grave offering. It was manufactured in Apulia in Southern Italy, where there were a number of Greek colonies.
Corfu was the Moncks’ first point of
contact with Greece as we now know it. They had meant to visit Zakynthos
(Zante) first, but diverted due to warnings of French privateers. A similar
problem affected their proposed visit to Corfu on the return journey - wartime
travel was perilous! Antiquity-wise, there was not much to see: most of Corfu’s
ancient sites were excavated after the Moncks’ visit. Sir Charles was eager to
see the ancient citadel he had read of in Virgil’s Aeneid, and was shown temple remains, probably those of the Temple
of Artemis. Here as elsewhere, however, he was just as much impressed by the
plant life. Monck's admiration for the flora of Greece, alongside its
architecture, is evident at Corfu and reflected at Belsay.
Click on the drawings of the artefacts to find out more
![Looking east across the Kanoni peninsula, this shows, on the right, the site of ancient Corcyra. Joseph Cartwright 1821, Feast of St. Jason and Sosipatros in Corfu Island. [The Ionian Islands: twelve plates / engraved and coloured by R. Havell and son, London, 1821]](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/33eaf2d0ab63837c12f75d5488f2ceefcd29251c67561c2cb48ad06519c584b4/1.CorfuLanscape_Cartright.jpeg)
![Ancient Corcyra (Palaiopoli) citadel, more-or-less as Monck would have seen it in 1805. Anon. 1839/40, View of Palaiopoli on the Kanoni peninsula, from Garitsa bay. [Collection of 87 original sepia and water-colour sketches of the Ionian Islands, dated 1839-40 Gennadius Library]](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/cb207ddd9fee32f1c8059bf0e3e7d14d4cbb56c94c185b7ca04d659ee6c69394/2.CorfuLandscape_Corcyra.jpg)
“We were conducted by [Mr.
Foresti] to walk in the country to the great delight of us all — we saw...”
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“We were conducted by [Mr.
Foresti] to walk in the country to the great delight of us all — we saw orange trees and prickly pears in abundance, with a few date palms. Cypress — acanthus — garden anemones wild — The hills crowned with groves of olive, and diversified with villas afforded us an enchanting prospect — here is an ample field for the landscape painter.”
Click below to listen to this diary entry
of the 20th of March, 1805
of the 20th of March, 1805
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Terracotta Antefix
400-300 BC
[Shefton Collection 611]
Artemis is the Greek goddess of the wild and hunting. Here she wears a lion’s skin, a motif associated with Bendis, a similar goddess worshipped in Thrace, to the North of Greece. Antefixes covered the end of the tiles on the roof of a Greek temple.
400-300 BC
[Shefton Collection 611]
Artemis is the Greek goddess of the wild and hunting. Here she wears a lion’s skin, a motif associated with Bendis, a similar goddess worshipped in Thrace, to the North of Greece. Antefixes covered the end of the tiles on the roof of a Greek temple.
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Marble Statuette of Nike
100 BC – 100 AD
[Shefton Collection 815]
100 BC – 100 AD
[Shefton Collection 815]
“[Mr Foresti] conducted us
through the fields
to the site of the ancient town of Corcyra —
it is elevated and you may imagine the...”
to the site of the ancient town of Corcyra —
it is elevated and you may imagine the...”
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“[Mr Foresti] conducted us through the fields to the site of the ancient town of Corcyra — it is elevated and you may imagine the aërias arces [citadels high in the air] as Virgil calls them — there are also near it the remains of the cella of a temple — our walk was enchantingly pleasant through orange and olive groves, the ground enamelled with wild anemones, asphodells and many other beautiful flowers whose exact names I did not know — the air perfumed by the blossoms of the orange trees.”
Click below to listen to this diary entry
of the 22nd of March, 1805
of the 22nd of March, 1805
![A stylised view looking towards the castle. Landscaping, vistas and planting were all important to Monck, as both the travel diaries and his design of Belsay show. Georgina Eyre Formal gardens 1800s. [PY10630-001 English Heritage library collection]](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d36a638bd6c39631da85cc2f3cb76a3f28ad809da3db59caeea4d1936bf0982e/4.CorfuLandscape_Eyre.jpg)
