Located in a wing of the large structure of Palazzo Orsini, in the Old Town of Pitigliano, the Civic and Archaeological Museum of Etruscan Civilization was inaugurated on 11 March 1995 and later (2019) named after Enrico Pellegrini, archaeologist and scientific director of the museum structure from 1997 to 2016. The rich exhibition itinerary of this museum revolves around the restoration laboratory, which is also an important showcase of finds of great interest.
In the first two rooms, dedicated to the Collezione Vaselli, archaeological finds from the necropolis of Poggio Buco are displayed where Adele Vaselli, between 1955 and 1960, had conducted excavations on the estate she owned, finding over a thousand finds which she donated to the Pitigliano community. This collection includes numerous vases with geometric decoration, the precious ceramics from Symposium in bucchero known as “heavy” – large craters and amphorae for water (hydria) dating back to the first half of the 6th century BC. – and the beautiful ceramics with decorations of fantastic animals in Etruscan-Corinthian style (late 7th-mid 6th century BC).
The purified clay and smooth brown body ceramics (7th-6th century BC), as well as the refined fragment of an Attic black-figure kylix attributed to the circle of Exekias, are part of the Collezione Cav. B. Martinucci and of excavations carried out in the Pitigliano area.
Lastly, some finds from the area called “Le Macerie”, located inside the historic centre, at the beginning of via Zuccarelli, excavated during 1998, as well as those from the northern side, date back to the presence of the first residential settlements. to the period of the Final Bronze Age (12th century BC).
