Volterra (Italian pronunciation:[volˈtɛrra]; Latin: Volaterrae) is a walled mountaintop town in the Tuscany region of Italy. Its history dates from before the 8th century BC and it has substantial structures from the Etruscan, Roman, and Medieval periods.[3]
The site is believed to have been continuously inhabited as a city since at least the end of the 8th century BC.[10][11][12] It became a municipium allied to Rome at the end of the 3rd century BC.[13][14] The city was a bishop's residence in the 5th century,[15] and its episcopal power was affirmed during the 12th century.
With the decline of the episcopate and the discovery of local alum deposits, Volterra became a place of interest of the Republic of Florence, whose forces conquered Volterra.[16] Florentine rule was not always popular, and opposition occasionally broke into rebellion.[17] These rebellions were put down by Florence.
When the Republic of Florence fell in 1530, Volterra came under the control of the Medici family and later followed the history of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. In 1472, during the war between Volterra and Florence in the called Allumiere war which finished with the sacking of Volterra by the Duke of Montefeltro and his army, it caused the emigration of many wealthy families and the appropiation of their goods.[18]
Etruscan Acropolis and Roman Cistern. The acropolis on the citadel dates to the 8th century B.C., while the cistern is from the 1st century B.C.[39]
Volterra Cathedral. It was enlarged in the 13th century after an earthquake. It houses a ciborium and some angels by Mino da Fiesole, a notable wood Deposition (1228), a masterwork of Romanesque sculpture and the Sacrament Chapel, with paintings by Santi di Tito, Giovanni Balducci and Agostino Veracini. In the center of the vault are fragments of an Eternal Father by Niccolò Circignani. Also noteworthy is the Addolorata Chapel, with a terracotta group attributed to Andrea della Robbia and a fresco of Riding Magi by Benozzo Gozzoli. In the nearby chapel, dedicated to the Most Holy Name of Jesus, is a table with Christ's monogram, allegedly painted by Bernardino of Siena. The rectangular bell tower is from 1493.
Volterra Baptistery or Baptistery of San Giovanni, built in the second half of the 13th century.
Meshullam da Volterra (d. 1508), an Italian-Jewish businessman who traveled to the Land of Israel and surrounding Jewish communities. His works provide concise and important details about the nature and conditions of Ottoman Jewry.
The poet Jacopo da Leona, a judge at Volterra in the 13th century
The Maffei family of Volterra produced the apostolic Secretary Gherardo Maffei and his three sons: the eldest Antonio Maffei, who was one of the assassins in the Pazzi Conspiracy against the Medici in 1478; second the humanist Raffaello Maffei called "Volterrano" who also served in the Curia; and youngest Mario Maffei, who was also a scholar and followed his father in the curia.
Linda Proud's A Tabernacle for the Sun (2005), the first volume of The Botticelli Trilogy, begins with the sack of Volterra in 1472. Volterra is the ancestral home of the Maffei family and the events of 1472 lead directly to the Pazzi Conspiracy of 1478. The protagonist of the novel is Tommaso de' Maffei, half brother of one of the conspirators.
Volterra is an important location in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. In the books, Volterra is home to the Volturi, a clan of rich, regal, powerful ancient vampires, who essentially act as the rulers of the world's vampire population. (However, the relevant scenes from the movie were shot in Montepulciano.)
Volterra is the site of Stendhal's famously disastrous encounter in 1819 with his beloved Countess Mathilde Dembowska: she recognised him there, despite his disguise of new clothes and green glasses, and was furious. This is the central incident in his book On Love [fr].[66][67]
Volterra is mentioned repeatedly in British author Dudley Pope's Captain Nicholas Ramage historical nautical series. Gianna, the Marchesa of Volterra and the fictional ruler of the area, features in the first twelve books of the eighteen-book series. The books chart the progress and career of Ramage during the Napoleonic wars of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, providing readers with well-scripted articulate details of life aboard sailing vessels and conditions at sea of that time.[68][69]
Valerio Massimo Manfredi's The Ancient Curse is also set in Volterra, where a statue called 'The Shade of Twilight' is stolen from the Volterra museum.
Volterra is featured in Jhumpa Lahiri's 2008 collection of short stories Unaccustomed Earth. It is where Hema and Kaushik, the protagonists of the final short story "Going Ashore," travel before they part.[71]
Volterra is featured in Luchino Visconti's 1965 film Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa, released as Sandra (Of a Thousand Delights) in the United States and as Of These Thousand Pleasures in the UK.[72]
Volterra's scenery is used for Central City in the 2017 film Fullmetal Alchemist (film) directed by Fumihiko Sori.
"Volaterrae" is the name given by Dan and Una to their secret place in Far Wood in Rudyard Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill. They named it from the verse in Lord Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome:
From lordly Volaterrae, Where scowls the far-famed hold Piled by the hands of giants For Godlike Kings of old.
Volterra and its relationship with Medici Florence features in the 2018 second season of Medici: Masters of Florence.
^D. H. Lawrence (16 April 2013). Etruscan Places. Read Books Limited. pp. 97–. ISBN978-1-4474-8782-1. The great hilltop or headland on which Etruscan "Volterra," Velathri, Vlathri, once stood spreads out jaggedly, with deepcleft valleys in between, more or less in view, spreading two or three miles away. It is something like a hand, the bluff steep ...
^D. H. Lawrence; Simonetta de Filippis (11 July 2002). Sketches of Etruscan Places and Other Italian Essays. Cambridge University Press. pp. 315–. ISBN978-0-521-00701-6. Volterra Velathri in Etruscan, Volaterrae in Latin; it flourished between the 4th and the 1st centuries BC. In 298 BC the town yielded without resistance to the Romans and maintained a major role amongst the centres of n. Etruria up to the ...
^Jean MacIntosh Turfa (13 November 2014). The Etruscan World. Routledge. pp. 134–. ISBN978-1-134-05523-4. The lives of many Etruscan cities extend for a millennium or more from the end of the Bronze Age, providing abundant ... Vetulonia, Volterra and probably also Caere, were already occupied in the Final Bronze Age (Protovillanovan period, ...
^Haynes, Sybille (2005). Etruscan Civilization: A Cultural History. Los Angeles: Getty Trust Publications. p. 30. ISBN978-0-89236-600-2.
^Alan Norman Bold (1976). Cambridge Book of English Verse, 1939-1975. CUP Archive. pp. 220–. ISBN978-0-521-09840-3. Volterra is a modern town in Tuscany and was once one of twelve cities of Etruria. 1] crack in the stone: like mankind, Volterra stands at the edge of crumbling cliffs. Much of Volterra has dropped down into 'the slow abyss' of erosion.
^Damgaard Andersen, Helle (1997). Urbanization in the Mediterranean in the 9th to 6th Centuries BC. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. p. 344. ISBN9788772894126.
^David Bershad; Carolina Mangone; Irving Hexham (2001). The Christian Travelers Guide to Italy. Harper Collins. pp. 220–. ISBN978-0-310-22573-7. The famed local industry, working alabaster, has also proved an enduring industry in Volterra. Begun in the 8th century B.C., alabaster carving continues today as the traditional Volterran trade. The prehistoric Villanovan settlement (9th century ...
^DK (1 May 2014). Eyewitness Travel Family Guide Italy. Dorling Kindersley Limited. pp. 202–. ISBN978-1-4093-5398-0. Truly ancient clifftop city Volterra is perhaps the most dramatic and unusual city in the region. Founded by the Etruscans in the 8th century BC, it is perched on a high plateau of volcanic rock and surrounded by medieval walls, some ...
^Insight Guides (2 November 2015). Insight Guides: Tuscany. APA. pp. 524–. ISBN978-1-78005-543-5. These include Etruscan (8th–2nd century BC) sites at Volterra, Fiesole, Arezzo, Chiusi, Vetulonia and on the island of Elba. There is an archaeological museum in Florence, and other museums in Volterra, Chiusi, Cortona, Asciano, Grosseto ...
^Vander Poppen, Robert E. (2008). Rural Change and Continuity in Etruria: A Study of Village Communities from the 7th Century B.C. to the 1st Century A.D. (Thesis). pp. 340–. doi:10.17615/sc1p-nv51. Volterra: A Roman City with an Etruscan Hinterland Rome first reached a settlement with Volterra at the end of the 3rd century B.C. when the city was declared an allied municipium. Volterra only entered fully into the control of Rome with ...
^Christopher Kleinhenz (2 August 2004). Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. pp. 1038–. ISBN978-1-135-94880-1. The lordship of a distant (and often preoccupied) bishop provided many opportunities for civic selfdetermination. On his hill, the bishop of Volterra built a castello as a residence when he was in the area. This, with its church of Santo Stefano, ...
^"Eucharistic Miracle of Volterra"(PDF). Istituto San Clemente I Papa e Martire. Real Presence Eucharistic Education and Adoration Association. 2006. Retrieved 27 November 2023.
^Lonely Planet (24 July 2014). Italie 6 - Florence et la Toscane (in French). Place Des Editeurs. pp. 226–. ISBN978-2-8161-4727-8. Volterragusto GASTRONOMIE (www.volterragusto.com). Manifestations à la mi-mars, à la fin octobre et début novembre, présentant des produits locaux, notammentdufromage, destruffes blanches, de l'huile d'olive et du chocolat.
^Madelena Gonzalez; Patrice Brasseur (16 April 2010). Authenticity and Legitimacy in Minority Theatre: Constructing Identity. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 138–. ISBN978-1-4438-2184-1. ... depuis 1996, le théâtre San Pietro à Volterra, a obtenu, à partir de 1997, la direction artistique et technique du festival Volterrateatro, au sein duquel le projet « Iteatri dell'impossibile » a été proposé.5 Cette compagnie apporte régulièrement ...
^Frank Sear (20 July 2006). Roman Theatres: An Architectural Study. OUP Oxford. pp. 170–. ISBN978-0-19-814469-4. J. B. Ward Perkins, BSR 29 (1961), 64, 68. VOLATERRAE (Volterra, PI) (Plan 79, Pis. 35-6) Location: within Roman walls, built against steep slope immediately north of medieval walls. Cavea: D 63 m, facing north-west; ima cavea: 10 rows (o.) ..
^Rick Steves (28 August 2007). Rick Steves' Florence and Tuscany 2008. Avalon Travel. pp. 354–. ISBN9781566918541. Over time, the theater was forgotten — covered in the garbage of Volterra. Luckily, it was rediscovered in the 1950s. The stage wall was standard Roman design — with three levels from which actors would appear: one for humans, one for ...
^Mauro Staccioli: Sites of Experience. Damiani. 2009. pp. 167–. ISBN978-88-6208-117-7. Piazza dei Priori ... Volterra's main piazza was the center around which Staccioli's 1972 exhibition was organized. A symbol of central power, the piazza is ...
^Baedekers Autoführer-Verlag (1962). Italy, including Sicily and Sardinia. K. Baedeker. pp. 489–. ...The centre of Volterra is the *Piazza dei Priori, which is lined with medieval palazzi. On the W side, the stately Palazzo dei Priori, ...
^Inc. Fodor's Travel Publications (2003). Fodor's Florence, Tuscany, and Umbria. Fodor's. pp. 195–. ISBN978-1-4000-1108-7. As you make the dramatic climb up to Volterra through bleak, rugged terrain, you'll see that not all ... Piazza dei Priori, lined with an impressive collection of medieval buildings, including the imposing Palazzo dei Priori ...
^Mariagiulia Burresi; Antonino Caleca (2006). Volterra d'oro e di pietra (in Italian). Pacini. pp. 58–. ISBN978-88-7781-775-4. Qui, nel rispetto della sua vocazione a documentare la consistenza dell'arte a Volterra, è stato creato il Museo di palazzo Minucci-Solaini, accostando al primitivo nucleo della Pinacoteca civica di Corrado Ricci, dipinti, sculture e arredi anch ...
^Lorenzo Carletti; Cristiano Giometti (2001). Scultura lignea pisana: percorsi nel territorio tra Medioevo e Rinascimento. F. Motta. pp. 117–. ISBN978-88-7179-302-3. Dal 1982 la Pinacoteca di Volterra è ospitata nelle sale del rinascimentale Palazzo Minucci-Solaini, ma la ... annessa al Duomo; quindi, su proposta di Corrado Ricci, nel 1905 la collezione fu spostata nel Palazzo dei Priori e arricchita. ... From 1982 onwards, the Pinacoteca in Volterra has been located in the rooms of the Renaissance Palazzo Minucci- Solaini, but the history of the ...
^Toscana: (esclusa Firenze) (in Italian). Touring Editore. 1997. pp. 464–. ISBN978-88-365-0948-5. A destra, nel breve sdrucciolo di Piazza, è la torre Martinoli, fianco del palazzo Incontri (pag. 459). VIA DANIELE RICCIARELLI (il pittore del '500 più noto come Daniele da Volterra). ... il vicino volto si sbuca nella piazzetta caratterizzata dalla casa-torre Minucci (secolo xm), inglobata nel palazzo Solaini (v. sotto). ... Nucleo fondamentale del complesso museale è la raccolta della Galleria pittorica comunale (Pinacoteca), fondata nel 1905 nel palazzo dei Priori e comprendente un 1 3 IL ...
^Michelin Travel Publications (2000). Tuscany. Michelin Travel Publications. pp. 313–. ISBN978-2-06-000010-7. Volterra crags (baize) Pinacoteca 0 - Via dei Sarti 1 ; in the Palazzo Minucci-Solaini. The art gallery has some interesting works of religious art by Tuscan masters of the 14C-17C ...
^Anna Benvenuti Papi (1999). Volterra e la Val di Cecina (in Italian). Mondadori. ISBN978-88-04-46773-1. Dal 1982 la Galleria Pittorica, o Pinacoteca, è ospitata nelle sale del palazzo Minucci-Solaini ... Tra le opere più significative segnaliamo, oltre la celebre e grandiosa tavola della Deposizione del Rosso Fiorentino, polittici ...
^Harvard Student's; Let's Go, Inc. (1999). Let's Go: the Budget Guide to Italy. St. Martin's Press. pp. 299–. ISBN9780312194888. Volterra's Fortezza Medicea, an elegant remnant from the Florentine domination, is the town's most prominent structure. ... On the other side of P. dei Priori, on V. dei Sard, the Pinacoteca Comunale occupies the Palazzo Minucci-Solaini (tel. ... In his Deposition (1520), the most significant piece of the collection, Rosso Fiorentino appears to abandon High Renaissance ...
^Denbigh Sale; Marie Kidd; Julian Pitt (1 December 2014). Our Secret Tuscany: In the Foothills of Monte Pisano. Australian eBook Publisher. pp. 53–. ISBN978-1-925271-65-2. Although Volterra isn't strictly in the region of the Monte Pisano, we highly recommend a visit to this atmospheric hilltown which ... From its commanding hilltop position, the enormous Medici Fortress (Fortezza Medicea) looks out over Volterra.
^Dana Facaros; Michael Pauls (2004). Italy. New Holland Publishers. pp. 685–. ISBN978-1-86011-113-6. ... in the 'archaeological park' near the Fortezza Medicea, a big castle built on what was the Etruscan acropolis in the 1470s. ... Volterra 's most conspicuous ancient relic, however, is the Etruscan arch in the south wall, over Via Porta all'Arco.
^Rachael Hamilton; Allison Macleod; Jenny Munro (18 July 2014). Spaces of (Dis)location. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 164–. ISBN978-1-4438-6451-0. Volterra's identity was not only characterized by its tradition of alabaster craft and by the psychiatric hospital, but also by the high security penitentiary located in the Fortezza Medicea. The Duke of Florence, Lorenzo il Magnifico, constructed the ...
^Anna Marguerite McCann; Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.) (1978). Roman Sarcophagi in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art. pp. 58–. Etruscan ... Cf. particularly the stern of a galley represented on an Etruscan funerary urn in the Guarnacci Museum in Volterra, Pairault, op. cit, pl. 1142.' Also see the stern of a galley...
^The J. Paul Getty Museum (1 January 1981). The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal: Volume 9, 1981. Getty Publications. pp. 55–. ISBN978-0-89236-032-1. ...in keeping with the gradual proliferation of large-sca1e sculpture throughout Etruria from the end of the fourth and beginning of ... Evidence for North Etruscan workmanship is offered by the reliefs on cinerary urns of Volterra, Chiusi, and Perugia, and the sculptural ... Museo Etrusco Guarnacci, inv. no.
^Eric Russell Chamberlin; Ken Paterson; Thomas Cook Ltd (1994). Passport's Illustrated travel guide to Florence & Tuscany. Passport Books. ISBN978-0-8442-9055-3. MUSEO ETRUSCO GUARNACCI This is one of the most important museums of Etruscan art in Italy. ... as the 'Shadow of the Night', discovered in 1879 and used as a firepoker until experts realised this was a masterpiece of Etruscan art.
^Rick Steves (29 December 2015). Rick Steves Snapshot Hill Towns of Central Italy: Including Siena & Assisi. Avalon Travel Publishing. pp. 94–. ISBN978-1-63121-204-8. The museum's other top piece is the Urn of the Spouses (Urna degli Sposi, first century B.C.). It's unique for various reasons, including its material (it's in terracotta—a relatively rare material for these funerary urns) and its depiction of two ...
^Florence and Tuscany. A complete guide with itineraries. ATS Italia Editrice. 2011. pp. 64–. ISBN978-88-6524-400-5. Among the works housed here, particularly remarkable are: the vase with black figures, the cinerary urn with the deceased (Atteone), the mirror with dioscuri and the Urn of the spouses. Volterra Guarnacci Etruscan Museum, Evening Shadow ...
^Touring Club of Italy (2005). Authentic Tuscany. Touring Editore. pp. 72–. ISBN978-88-365-3297-1. The Museo Etrusco Guarnacci O has forty rooms housing an enormous collection of antiquities from prehistoric to ... alabaster and terracotta (4th-1st century BC) from local excavations, including the famous Urna degli Sposi (Urn of the Married ...
^George Dennis (1848). The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria. John Murray. pp. 146–. Volterra. He may know it by the sign of three naked females, the most graceless things about the house. The landlord, SigTM. Ottavio ... From the "Unione," a few steps will lead to the Porta all' Arco.3 I envy the stranger his first impressions on ...
^Henry James (1 March 1995). Italian Hours. Penguin Publishing Group. pp. 339–. ISBN978-1-101-17386-2. I may not invite the reader to penetrate with me by so much as a step the boundless backward reach of history to which the more massive of the Etruscan gates of Volterra, the Porta all'Arco, forms the solidest of thresholds; since I perforce take ...
^Luisa Banti (1973). Etruscan Cities and Their Culture. University of California Press. pp. 146–. ISBN978-0-520-01910-2. These natural communication routes all met just below the city, where the village of Saline di Volterra stands today. Then as now, Volterra ... The two city gates — Porta Diana and Porta all'Arco — are Etruscan only in their lower part. The three ...
^Simioli, Adele (June 2013). "L'ipotesi di ospedale psichiatrico di Daniele Calabi: progetti e realizzazioni". Territorio (65): 85–88. doi:10.3280/tr2013-065013. ISSN1825-8689.
^Emma Jones (1 April 2004). Tuscany and Umbria. Hunter Publishing, Inc. pp. 308–. ISBN978-1-58843-399-2. The. wide fertile valley of the Valdera (the Era Valley) spreads along the Era River ... Saline di Volterra is on the Pisa-Cecina-Volterra Saline train line (% 848-888088, www.trenitalia.it); a shuttle bus will take ...
^Gillian Price (27 July 2012). Walking in Tuscany: 50 Walks throughout Tuscany. Cicerone Press Limited. pp. 80–. ISBN978-1-84965-672-6. By public transport from Volterra take the local bus for the short ride down to Saline. Otherwise from Cecina on the main LivornoRome rail line, several trains a day (or the odd substitute bus) still run as far as Saline. 7: Saline di Volterra, ...
^David Gilmour (3 March 2011). The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, its Regions and their Peoples. Penguin Books Limited. pp. 46–. ISBN978-0-14-192989-7. ... who were based in Etruria, where they built hilltop towns such as Volterra, and from where they spread north to the Po ... historian Livy, Thomas Babington Macaulay described the Roman hero Horatius Cocles holding a bridge over 'Father ...
^James Bentley (5 July 1988). A guide to Tuscany. Penguin. pp. 18–. ISBN978-0-14-046683-6. Macaulay's poem 'Horatius' has as its hero a Roman, not the ranks of Lars Porsena invading the city of Rome. Even so Macaulay perfectly catches in his verse ... It took him two years to starve out Volterra. Then Sulla made himself dictator and ...
^F. C. Green (16 June 2011). Stendhal. Cambridge University Press. pp. 142–. ISBN978-1-107-60072-0. In May of 1819, Métilde went to Volterra where her two sons were at school, whilst Stendhal reproached himself bitterly for not having had the courage to demand a decisive explanation of her feelings. But as he wrote rather pathetically: " Mais ...
^Tom Grundner (1 October 2007). The Ramage Companion. Fireship Press. pp. 1–. ISBN978-1-934757-05-5. Lieutenant Lord Nicholas Ramage wakes up a dazed and confused young man. ... Landing himself and his men, he rescues the stranded refugees—including the beautiful Marchesa di Volterra—literally from under the hoofs of Napoleon's ...
^Panorama (in Italian). Vol. 1826–1829. Mondadori. April 2001. pp. 223–. CHIMAIRA di Valerio Massimo Manfredi Mondadori, 246 pagine, 30 mila lire. ... con Nino Castelnuovo che perdeva la testa per una bella etrusca reincarnatasi nella Volterra dei giorni nostri.
^Anjali Pandey (25 January 2016). Monolingualism and Linguistic Exhibitionism in Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan UK. pp. 165–. ISBN978-1-137-34036-8. ... they saw, lined on the shelves, hundreds of urns in which the ancient people of Volterra had stored the ashes of their dead. ... The following interaction excerpted from "Unaccustomed Earth" illustrates how Lahiri manages to 'explain' Bengali ...
^Henry Bacon (28 March 1998). Visconti: Explorations of Beauty and Decay. Cambridge University Press. pp. 120–. ISBN978-0-521-59960-3. Another starting point was d'Amico's and Visconti's idea of locating the story in the Tuscan city of Volterra. ... Sandra (Cardinale) suspects her mother (Marie Bell) and the mother's lover Gilardini (Renzo Ricci) of betraying her Jewish father to ...
Bell, Sinclair and Alexandra A. Carpino, eds. (2016) A Companion to the Etruscans. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.
Haynes, Sybille (2000) Etruscan civilization: A cultural history. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum.
Pallottino, Massimo (1978) The Etruscans. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Sprenger, Maia, and Bartoloni, Gilda (1983) The Etruscans: Their history, art and architecture. Translated by Robert E. Wolf. New York: Harry N. Abrams.
Turfa, Jean MacIntosh, ed. (2013) The Etruscan World. Routledge Worlds. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.