Volterra, magic and mysterious: her "city of the wind and the boulder" of Of announcement, it is an urban agglomeration where, thanks to the isolation that has limited the industrial development for centuries, preventing him/it foolish building that accompanies too often the economic development, it is still possible to taste the atmosphere of an ancient suburb medioevale.
Volterra sinks his/her roots in three thousand years of history and the particularity that it is possible to find traces or testimonanianze of every historical period, you/he/she has contributed to make her/it only in the panorama of the a lot of cities of art. Symptomatic of all of this is the acropolis, situated in the Plan of Castle, the tallest part of the hill volterrano, that also understands the Fortitude Medicea and the actual Park. In this zone, through various stratifications, it is possible to read the birth and the development of the city, from the prehistory to the XV century.
The origins of Volterra are still wound in the mystery; legends exist only, tied up to the mysterious birth still of the people of the Etruschis or Tyrrenoi, as you/they had called from the Greek.
A first legend, that goes up again to the times of August, he/she affirms that Volterra would already have been a flourishing city before the war of Sow, or rather the XIII sec. to.C. According to this legend the people of the Lidia, forced to abandon their earths in Smaller Asia, you/they would be disembarked in central Italy. The hill where Volterra rises, for his/her orografia that, putting him/it isolated among two valleys easily makes him/it defensible, you/he/she would have been select for their installation at the king of the Beaches, that called Tyrrhenòs and told nearby the name the city and the sea. The zone was already lived by a belonging population to the nation Etrusca, that welcomed of good degree the new arrivals and it allowed them an easy insertion that accelerated the development of the two integrated people.
A second legend puts even more the birth of Volterra in a remote past, affirming that the city would have risen for work of Giano, relative of the biblical Noè, if not straight for work of the same Noè. And' interesting to notice that Giano has been a very family character of the culture etrusca, so much that with his/her effigy the most ancient coins in the city were coined.
In every way, beyond the legends, some finds recovered in the outskirts of the city allow us, to put the birth of Volterra at least around the year 1000 to.C. I am, these, the traces of a civilization in which, further to objects and bronze weapons, use also does already him of iron tools; it deals with the so-called Civilization Villanoviana. The reconstruction of some graves of this period is found in the Museum Etrusco Guarnacci.
Of the period etruscos remain various traces of the surrounded building, the imposing Door to the arc, the necropolis of the Marminis (the archaic necropolis of the Ripaies, has disappeared unfortunately for leaving the place to the actual sporting field, while those of Abbey are sunk in the Crags) and the numerous preserved archaeological finds in the Museum Etrusco Guarnacci, from the shade of the Evening (bronzetto with an unique profile, still illegible), to the urns cinerarie, to the jewels elegantly worked, to the particular pots handed perfume in glass and gold (the technique of workmanship has been unknown up to our days). And' of this epoch (IV-the sec. to.C.) the period of great shine, confirmed also by the diffused coinage of the III sec. to.C.
The Roman Theater of Vallebona, (end of the The sec. to.C.), instead it is witness of the importance that Volterra had in Roman age. The representatives of various families volterranes covered important positions in the public life of Rome and the dawning Church (S. Lino, the successor of S. Pietro, was a volterrano). Developed him the Christianity, Volterra it follows the new faith and, to the fall of the empire Romano (476 ds.C.), it becomes Episcopalian center, to head of a vast diocese, but it is around the year 1000, after the barbaric domination, that he affirms the power of the bishops, become hereditary with the family Pannocchieschi (1150 - 1239).
And' from the medioevo, however, that the structure of the city that we see today derives, with the typical urban layout characterized by holds streets, from more narrow alleys still, from superb buildings, from the house-towers, and from he/she asked her, that coagulated and they centralized the life of every neighborhood. Volterra is almost entirely contained within the boundaries medioevali, that is the point of arrival of an initiated process of urbanistic expansion around the year 1000 that, after the contraction in form castrense of the slow-ancient period, whose perimeter is limited to the Plan of Castle (the ancient Acropolis), finds its conclusion to the beginning of 1300, with the construction of the defensive systems in proximity of the principal doors of the city (Hands Porta S. to the arc Felice, Porta S. Francis, Porta Florentine, Hands of Docciola, Porta Marcoli, Brings to Flints).
The city, reduced in form of castrum around the V sec. d.C., develop him around the ancient church of Saint Maria, the actual cathedral, and to the adjoining one "pratus episcopatus", today the Prior Plaza, while out of the castrum or castellum rise, after the year thousand, the suburb of Saint Maria, the actual Street Ricciarelli, perpendicular to the boundaries of the castle and the suburb of the abbot, the actual street of the Tailors, parallel to the same boundaries.
During two hundred on the pratus episcopatus, not only the Building of the Prior (what it will give I also sprout him/it for the construction of Old Building to Florence) is built, but the terms of the plaza are also delimited and they are limited the height of the towers, in different measure in the different urban zones. In axle with the Building of the Prior it rises, according to an urbanistic use typically Tuscan, the plaza St. Giovanni, where they lean out all the buildings pertinent to the church: the Cathedral, the Baptistery, the House of the work, the hospital of Saint Maria, the cemetery (the actual Street Turazza).
Renaissance civilization interests Volterra in notable way, but without altering its medieval atmosphere. Of this period they are the superb buildings, Minucci-Solaini, Meeting-grapevines, Inghirami, inserted without twisting him/it in the medieval urban environment, the imposing Fortitude Medicea and the Convent of St. Girolamo.
The city, not having had in the centuries a strong urbanistic expansion, you/he/she has almost been equal to herself, with its four medieval suburbs: suburb S. Alexander, on the street of the Salt pans, toward the Val of Cecina and the sea, suburb S. Lazzaro, on the street for Florence and Siena, suburb S. Stephen and suburb S. Correct, the more away from the city, in proximity of the Crags, dominated by the mighty massive structure of the church devoted to St. Correct and to St. Clemente. The circuit of the thirteenth-century boundaries, up to few years ago it almost all delimited the city and solo in the last decades of 2000 an expansion, you/he/she is had out some boundaries, toward the Val of Cecina, that has allowed a certain economic development, also not twisting the native plant of it.
At the end of the eight hundred and in the first trentennio of this century in the zone of suburb S. Lazzaro rose the great complex of the Psychiatric hospital that, together with the prison institute, for a long time present in the Mastio, you/he/she has represented an essential pillar for the economy volterrana. After the closing of the psychiatric hospital, the structure has suffered a strong I degrade, partially recovered today, after the transformation of a part of the buildings in a modern hospital structure. Always in the zone of S. Lazzaro the ancient railway station can be seen, inaugurated in 1912 and dismessa in the fifties that, through game scaffoldings and with a line endowed with rack, essential to overcome the steep slopes, Volterra connected to the city of Salt pans and the sea.
Volterra is also city of museums and, besides the already quoted Museum Etrusco, we find: the Pinacoteca Civica, with valuable testimonies of school senese and Florentine, among which her "Deposition from the Cross" of the Florentine Red and the Museum of Sacred art, that it picks up important works of oreficeria, fourteenth-century sculptures of school senese, miniated antifonari; among the paintings they emerge the shovel of Ulignano, of Daniel Ricciarelli and the shovel of Villamagna, of the Florentine Red.
From the economic point of view, the activity that has woven his/her own history with that of the city, and it represents another point of notable interest, it is the craftsmanship of the alabaster. And' visiting her numerous exposures, or snooping around in the artisan shops for the city, that way will be had to breathe some that "magic atmosphere" that Volterra surrounds.
In the volterrano, however, there is not only art and history; the surrounding territory is rich of natural and landscape beauties, that offer to the visitor you occasion for excursions afoot, to horse, in bicycle, long kilometers of signalled runs, to the discovery of unique and characteristic places. Volterra is also famous for his/her gastronomic specialties that sink their birth in the Tuscan tradition and for the hospitality that is able to offer to every type of tourist, with his/her numerous hotels, firms agrituristiche, apartments for vacations, or with an equipped camping and a modern hostel.
During the summer period, besides, cultural demonstrations, shows of art and demonstrations folcloristiches, allow the guests to have a rich vacation, not only of relax and calm, but also of moments of cultural meeting.
Among these we signal:
- "VolterraTeatro" (International Festival of Theater),
- "Volterra A.D. 1398 (rievocazione storiva medioevale),
- "Astiludio" (competition among sbandieratori coming from the whole Italy),
- "Concerts of classical and modern music" (with great names of the Italian and international music, in the marvelous scenery of the Plaza of the Prior).
Volterra certainly is not an underestimated suburb, of it you/they have spoken to their works, among the so many: Strabone, Cicero, Plinio, Boccaccio, Goldoni, Stendhal, Of announcement, Lawrence, Cassola; Viscounts, in 1964 it turned you "Vague Stars of the Orsa, winning film to Venice with the gold Leo.
From the geographical point of view, Volterra is geocentric in comparison to the greatest cities in Tuscany, dista, in fact:
| 72 kms from Florence | 50 kms from Siena | 64 kms from Pisa |
| 73 kms from Livorno | 100 kms from Arezzo | 80 kms from Pistoia |
| 80 kms from Lucca | 115 kms from Carrara | 120 kms from Grosseto |
| 92 Lawn kms | 29 kms from S. Gimignano | 40 kms from Cecina |
