Museo Etrusco Guarnacci

The Guarnacci Etruscan Museum in Volterra is one of the oldest public museums in Europe and houses one of the most important collections of Etruscan antiquities in the world. Founded as a Civic Museum in 1732 thanks to the donation of Pietro Franceschini, it quickly grew with numerous archaeological finds discovered in the territory of Volterra, particularly thanks to the extensive collection of Monsignor Mario Guarnacci. Since 1877, the Museum has been located in Palazzo Desideri Tangassi, where authentic masterpieces of ancient art are preserved, including the Sarcophagus of the Spouses, the Montebradoni Crater, the Stele of Avile Tite, the Maffei Kourotrophos, and the Ombra della Sera, the famous bronze depicting a boy with elongated forms. The exhibition path also boasts the largest collection of Hellenistic-era funerary urns in Etruria, a testimony to the wealthy and cultured aristocracy of ancient Velathri. The faces and bodies reclining on the urns contain all the allure of the Etruscan people, while the reliefs on the caskets depict daily life, affections, and the mythological universe that animated the Etruscan imagination between the 3rd and 1st centuries B.C.