Description
The National Archaeological Museum of Florence tells the story of Tuscany before the Renaissance: Etruscan civilization, with its bronzes and urns, a large Egyptian section and a collection of Greek vases, in the seventeenth-century Palazzo della Crocetta.
Many people in Florence overlook it: the city thinks mostly of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Yet the finds come from digs all over Tuscany, northern Lazio and Umbria.
The star piece is the Chimera of Arezzo, an Etruscan bronze of the 4th century BC: a monster with a lion's body, a goat's head on its back and a tail shaped like a snake. It was found in a field near Arezzo in 1553 and Vasari presented it to Cosimo I.
Near the Chimera stands the Arringatore (the Orator), the Etruscan nobleman Aule Meteli in a Roman toga, with his arm raised toward the crowd. Then come the sarcophagi and funerary urns: that of Larthia Seianti, for example, with the noblewoman adjusting her veil.
On the second floor is the collection of Attic pottery. The masterpiece is the François Vase, found in 1844 in an Etruscan tomb near Chiusi: a large krater of 565 BC that tells Greek myths in six bands of figures.
The Egyptian section, with the war chariot of bone and wood from the 15th century BC, found near Thebes, is the second in Italy after Turin's. Born from an expedition in 1828 with Champollion, the decipherer of hieroglyphs, it also has objects in wood, textile and bone.
In the garden you can visit a few Etruscan tombs rebuilt with the original materials, such as the Inghirami Tomb from Volterra with its alabaster urns.
The museum was born in 1870 as the "Etruscan Museum," inaugurated by Victor Emmanuel II. Ten years later it moved to the Palazzo della Crocetta, which Giulio Parigi had built for Princess Maria Maddalena de' Medici, sister of Cosimo II, who had severe disabilities.
In 1966 the flood hit the Etruscan rooms hard: restoring the finds took almost forty years.
Don't miss
• The Chimera of Arezzo.
• The Arringatore.
• The François Vase.
• The Egyptian chariot.
• The Etruscan tombs in the garden.
Did you know?
• The Chimera's tail is an eighteenth-century restoration: originally the snake and the goat were meant to turn threateningly toward the viewer, not bite each other.
• A bronze horse head in the museum inspired Donatello for his equestrian monuments.
Many people in Florence overlook it: the city thinks mostly of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Yet the finds come from digs all over Tuscany, northern Lazio and Umbria.
The star piece is the Chimera of Arezzo, an Etruscan bronze of the 4th century BC: a monster with a lion's body, a goat's head on its back and a tail shaped like a snake. It was found in a field near Arezzo in 1553 and Vasari presented it to Cosimo I.
Near the Chimera stands the Arringatore (the Orator), the Etruscan nobleman Aule Meteli in a Roman toga, with his arm raised toward the crowd. Then come the sarcophagi and funerary urns: that of Larthia Seianti, for example, with the noblewoman adjusting her veil.
On the second floor is the collection of Attic pottery. The masterpiece is the François Vase, found in 1844 in an Etruscan tomb near Chiusi: a large krater of 565 BC that tells Greek myths in six bands of figures.
The Egyptian section, with the war chariot of bone and wood from the 15th century BC, found near Thebes, is the second in Italy after Turin's. Born from an expedition in 1828 with Champollion, the decipherer of hieroglyphs, it also has objects in wood, textile and bone.
In the garden you can visit a few Etruscan tombs rebuilt with the original materials, such as the Inghirami Tomb from Volterra with its alabaster urns.
The museum was born in 1870 as the "Etruscan Museum," inaugurated by Victor Emmanuel II. Ten years later it moved to the Palazzo della Crocetta, which Giulio Parigi had built for Princess Maria Maddalena de' Medici, sister of Cosimo II, who had severe disabilities.
In 1966 the flood hit the Etruscan rooms hard: restoring the finds took almost forty years.
Don't miss
• The Chimera of Arezzo.
• The Arringatore.
• The François Vase.
• The Egyptian chariot.
• The Etruscan tombs in the garden.
Did you know?
• The Chimera's tail is an eighteenth-century restoration: originally the snake and the goat were meant to turn threateningly toward the viewer, not bite each other.
• A bronze horse head in the museum inspired Donatello for his equestrian monuments.