Attractions

On the Trail of the Etruscans

Although a huge portion of Chiusi's rich archaeological patrimony was carried off by early archaeologists to museums in Orvieto and elsewhere, the city's Museo Archeologico Nazionale Etrusco, in Via Porsenna (tel. 0578-20-177), has no mean share of what's left. The collections inside this neoclassical building are in eternal rearrangement. There are plenty of the famous rectangular Etruscan funerary urns, in which the deceased's ashes were kept in a box topped by a lid carved with the man or woman's reclining likeness. Keep on the lookout for find no. 407, featuring a winged version of the split-tailed siren -- the mythological symbol of sex and fertility, which pops up as late as the Middle Ages on Christian buildings like Pienza's Pieve. One of the museum's greatest treasures is a set of painted urns dating back to the 2nd century B.C. on which the polychrome decorations are still marvelously intact.

Another Etruscan funerary vehicle on display is the anthropomorphic canopic jar, made of terra cotta and sometimes bronze with a carved human head for a lid and handles like arms. Occasionally an entire statue would top off the affair, as in the 7th-century-B.C. example here. The deceased, perched on the lid, is apparently orating, surrounded by stylized griffins whose heads are raised high, crying out. Aside from the prehistoric and Villanovan bits, the imported Attic black- and red-figure vases, and some ebony-toned 7th- to 6th-century-B.C. bucchero ceramics, keep your eyes peeled for the marble portrait of Augustus and the 3rd-century-A.D. mosaic of a boar hunt. The basement is devoted to depicting local necropolises and their excavations. The museum is open Monday through Saturday from 9am to 2pm and Sunday from 9am to 1pm (it stays open to 8pm July-Sept, and may continue to do so year-round; phone ahead). Admission is 4€ ($5.20) adults, 2€ ($2.60) ages 18 to 25, free for children under 18 and people over 65.

A block up from the museum, Piazza del Duomo opens off to your left, past a medieval tower converted to Christian purposes in the 16th century as the bell tower to San Secondiano cathedral. The piazza, with its loggia running down one side, is a small but striking square of light-gray cut stone that matches the facade of the 12th-century Duomo at one end. The inside was restored in the late 19th century but retains its recycled columns and capitals pilfered from local Roman buildings. On closer inspection, you'll note those seemingly early medieval "mosaics" covering every inch of the nave and apses are actually made of paint -- an 1887-to-1894 opus by Arturo Viligiardi (viewable by coin-op lights).

The entrance to the Museo della Cattedrale (tel. 0578-226-490) is to the right of the Duomo's doors under the arcade. The first floor has some uninspired paleo-Christian and Lombard remains, but in the gardens are remains of the Etruscan city's walls and a 3rd-century-B.C. tower. The museum's main attraction is upstairs, a series of 21 antiphonals from the abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore that were illuminated by artists like Sano di Pietro and Liberale da Verona in the 15th century. The entire set was stolen in 1972, but miraculously all save one and a few pages of another were recovered. The museum is open daily: from June to October 15 from 9:30am to 12:45pm and 4 to 7pm and from October 16 to May from 9:30am to 12:45pm (Sun also 3:30-6:30pm). Admission is 2€ ($2.60).

Meet at the museum desk for the obligatory guided tour of the Labirinto di Porsena (Labyrinth of Porsena) (tel. 0578-226-490 for reservations), the tourist board's inventive way to describe a jaunt through a painstakingly excavated portion of the tunnel system carved under the city by the Etruscans. The cathedral museum and gardens in the square above were once the bishop's palace, and the tunnels were used as a refuse dump. They were rediscovered in the 1920s by some kids who decided to start cleaning them out. The good-hearted teenagers kept at their task, eventually becoming a volunteer society of amateur archaeologists, and slowly the tunnels were reopened. A good stretch of the cunicoli (water sewers) was opened to the public in 1995. The narrow passages were apparently part of a vast plumbing system that once supplied the entire Etruscan city from a huge underground lake (also being archaeologically explored, but not yet public). As a bonus to the tour, the cathedral bell tower sits right on top of this well, and the climb to the top is worth it for the sweeping city and countryside vista. The half-hour tours cost 3€/$3.90 (or 4€/$5.20 combined with Museo), free for those under 10, and leave about every 30 minutes during museum hours.

Of the Etruscan tombs in the surrounding area, especially to the north and northeast toward the small Lake Chiusi (a remnant of the once widespread Valdichiana marshes), currently only the Tomba della Pellegrina (with 4th-c.-B.C. sarcophagi and 3rd-c.-B.C. cinerary urns still in place) and Tomba del Leone (still showing a bit of color on its walls) are open to visitors. For the moment at least, on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, you can also book ahead (space is limited for two visits a day, around 11am and 3:30pm -- but those hours aren't fixed) to see the famous painted Tomba della Scimmia, though its accessibility is decided year to year. To visit any of them, make an appointment at the archaeological museum (tel. 0578-20-177). You must have your own car, in which the custodian accompanies you.

You must also have wheels to visit the 3rd- to 5th-century-A.D. paleo-Christian catacombs in the same area. Meet the guide at 11am at the cathedral museum's desk (in summer also around 4pm).

Few other sights in town hold much interest, but on a stroll you might pass through the market square of Piazza XX Settembre, anchored at one end by the 13th-century Santa Maria della Morte, with its tall, flat tower and with a 14th-century loggia along one side. At the square's other end sprouts a clock tower, near which is the medieval San Francesco. Via Petrarca leads from Via Porsenna to a panorama over the Valdichiana from Piazza Olivazzo. The west end of town is a public park with a more intimate vista of Chiusi's cultivated slopes.