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Volterra,
splendour and mystery
by Eleonora Tiliacos
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In
every corner Volterra reveals an atavistic aptitude for nobility,
a close-knit medieval structure and the mysterious charm of
its Etruscan heritage.
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Volterra,
ancient in every detail and surrounded by thirteenth-century
walls, seems suspended between the Val di Cecina and the Val
d’Era, dominating a large stretch of the Colline Metallifere
- a link between the provinces of Pisa and Siena, yet at the
same time entrenched in complete solitude.
A position
that is all the more surprising if we consider the town’s
past and its leading role in both Etruscan and medieval times.
On
the surrounding hills, made mostly of sand and clay, erosion
has traced ravines and what are known as biancane, snow-white
dome-shaped outcrops of sodium sulphate - a fascinating but
tortured landscape that only softens into wheat-covered fields
and extensive woods further on.
The
ochre-coloured abyss known as Le Balze, which swallowed up
necropolis and suburbs in the past, begins right next to the
walls. Seen from the west, the town seems perched on the hill
in miraculous equilibrium instead of being solidly rooted
on it - and this is a mystery too, almost as much as the pages
of Etruscan
history of which we know nothing.
Glorious Velathri, originally one of the twelve Etruscan lucumonies,
whose trading influence extended over a large part of the
Upper Tyrrhenian Sea, is still visible everywhere in the town’s
close-knit medieval form - it lives on in the Piano di Castello
acropolis and in the remains of the walls dating back to the
4th century, in the three stone heads adorning Porta all’Arco
and the pyramid-shaped tower of Porta Diana.
Above
all in the Guarnacci Etruscan Museum, whose forty rooms hold
finds from Velathri along with those from prehistoric and
Roman times. The
world’s richest collection of Etruscan urns is to be found
here, around 600 specimens in tufa, terracotta and alabaster
(the “stone of light” that still features largely in the thriving
local handicrafts industry) whose reliefs present a series
of mysteriously fascinating faces of divinities and heroes.
The
thousands of works on display include masterpieces such as
the Avile Tire stele, the Lorenzini Head, the Urn of the Husband
and Wife and the bronze votive statuette renamed by D’Annunzio
“Evening Shadow”, a long, slender adolescent figure, almost
a child, surprisingly modern in its stylisation, a sculpture
that could belong to many epochs and is, in fact, one of the
best-loved symbols of Volterra. Just as the Guarnacci Museum
is the historical memory of the “ancient town”, the story
of its art starting from the Middle Ages is told in the Municipal
Art Gallery in Palazzo Minucci Solaini. Among the pictures
by Ghirlandaio, Daniele da Volterra and Luca Signorelli there
is also a splendid Deposition by Rosso Fiorentino, recently
restored. Another
painting by Rosso Fiorentino (the Villamagna altar-piece)
can be found at Palazzo Vescovile, in the Diocesan Museum
of Religious Art, where precious reliquaries are displayed
side-by-side with works by Tino di Camaino, Mino da Fiesole
and Giambologna. Besides the museum, the town’s indelible
images are revealed in its streets and piazzas - in the walls,
interrupted by nine gates that seem to open onto time rather
than onto a physical space; the upward thrust of the Buonparent
tower-house and the portal of San Michele Archangelo; the
massive bulk of the Medici Fortress; the wonderful Gothic
frescoes in the church of San Francesco and the ruins of the
Roman Theatre on the Vallebona slope.
At
the apex of any real or imaginary route we find Piazza dei
Priori, whose grey pietra panchina stone shapes one of the
most consistent settings created by the city-republic civilisation
in Italy. In
addition to the superb Palazzo dei Priori, of course, the
dominating presence here is Palazzo Pretorio with the Porcellino
tower, so called because of the little stone boar that adorns
the front. The
Baptistery and the Duomo, Pisan Romanesque gems that face
each other in Piazza San Giovanni, act as counterpoint to
these noble secular buildings.
On
crossing their thresholds one is greeted by a baptismal font
by Andrea Sansovino and a wooden Deposition that is one of
the most beautiful examples of Tuscan thirteenth-century sculpture.
Two
monumental piazzas at the heart of Volterra reveal its atavistic
tradition of nobility, while everywhere the solidity of stone
combines with the subtle allure of mystery as if time and
space had joined forces to create a Chinese puzzle - not only
in the alleys of the old town but also in the sumptuous halls
of Palazzo Incontri-Viti, where Visconti shot some of the
scenes of his film Vaghe stelle dell’Orsa (Of a Thousand Delights,
1965). The special alchemy of this town and of its ancient
spirit transcends solid reality just as light filters through
alabaster.
Eleonora Tiliacos
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