Located in a wing of the impressive Orsini Palace in the historic village of Pitigliano, the Civic Archaeological Museum of Etruscan Civilization was inaugurated on 11 March 1995 and was later dedicated (in 2019) to Enrico Pellegrini, archaeologist and scientific director of the museum from 1997 to 2016.
The museum’s rich exhibition path is centred around its restoration laboratory, which also serves as an important showcase for archaeological finds of great interest.
The first two rooms, dedicated to the Vaselli Collection, display archaeological finds from the necropolis of Poggio Buco, where Adele Vaselli carried out excavations on her estate between 1955 and 1960. During these works, she discovered more than one thousand artefacts, which she later donated to the community of Pitigliano.
The collection includes numerous vessels decorated with geometric motifs, refined symposium ceramics made of heavy bucchero—including large kraters and water jars (hydriae) dating back to the first half of the 6th century BC—as well as beautiful pottery decorated with fantastic animal motifs in the Etrusco-Corinthian style (late 7th–mid 6th century BC).
Also on display are ceramics made of refined clay and polished dark impasto ware dating from the 7th to the 6th century BC, as well as an exquisite fragment of an Attic black-figure kylix attributed to the circle of Exekias. These artefacts belong to the Cav. B. Martinucci Collection and come from archaeological excavations carried out in the territory of Pitigliano.
Finally, the exhibition includes artefacts from the Le Macerie area, located within the historic centre at the beginning of Via Zuccarelli and excavated in 1998, as well as finds from the northern slope. These discoveries reveal the earliest evidence of settlement in the area, dating back to the Late Bronze Age (12th century BC), and bear witness to a millennia-old history that continues to live on within the ancient walls of Pitigliano.