Grand Tour

The fascination of Volterra, a concentrate of Etruscan, medieval and Renaissance art, stemmed precisely from the historical mix that rendered it unique. Travelers were particularly struck by the marvelously preserved vestiges of the gates in the ancient ring of walls, attesting to its magnificence in the past. In no other place in Italy, asserted Valéry (1828), were Etruscan constructions so imposing and distinctive. It was for this past that Volterra made such an impression on the memory of lovers of antiquity, while remaining fairly marginal in the 18th-century tour of Tuscany. One of these enthusiasts was Colt Hoare (1786-87), whom we have to thank for a first description of Etruscan Volterra, and in particular the Porta dell’Arco, the Piscina and the town’s other archeological sites. His surveys of private collections, such as the ones belonging to the Guarnacci and Inghirami families, are accurate and invaluable, as are his descriptions of the Volterran churches, the grim prison of the Mastio and the precipice of the Balze.

It is no coincidence that in addition to the cathedral and Palazzo Pubblico, the features of the modern town, no more than a shadow of the one that had flourished in the 13th century under its consuls and popular government, which received a mention were the library and above all the museum of Etruscan antiquities. This housed a collection of tombs, monuments in stone or alabaster decorated with emblems, deities and scenes of daily life (sacrifices, banquets, hunts, battles, dances, games, marriages), statues, bas-reliefs, mosaics, coins and utensils), illustrating the ties between the Etruscan and Greek civilizations (Valéry, 1828). Interesting too is the reference to Guarnacci’s discovery of the baths at Volterra, showing that the Etruscans had them before they were invented by the Romans.