Museo Claudio Faina – insights into the Etruscan world

Orvieto is an Etruscan city but the most accessible way of sensing this is to see the treasures in the city’s Etruscan museum. The Museo Etrusco Claudio Faina, set on Piazza del Duomo, opposite the cathedral, is the right spot for an overview. The museum is home to an important archaeological collection of Etruscan and Hellenistic works, mostly linked to the Orvieto area. Founded by a local count in 1864, the collections are supposedly based on a gift of vases given to the founder by Napoleon Bonaparte’s niece. (The Bonaparte family discovered the Etruscan necropolis of Vulci).
The museum highlights include Etruscan black bucchero ware, Attic vases and 4th-century pots depicting Vanth, the Etruscan winged goddess of the underworld, who has snakes wrapped around her arms. The Romans changed the Etruscan city name of Volsinii to Urbs Vetus, and hence Orvieto. Even so, the Hellenistic finds dating from the 5th-century BC attest to the fact that the city terracotta workshops still thrived during this period and copied works inspired by the Ancient Greeks. From the second floor there are lovely views over the Duomo, Orvieto Cathedral.

Address: Piazza del Duomo, 05018 Orvieto
Web: www.museofaina.it