Murlo's Etruscan Museum: Poggio Civitate & the Cappellone

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South of Siena, where the Val d'Arbia gives way to the wooded Val di Merse, a walled village barely larger than its own courtyard keeps the finds from one of the most consequential digs in Etruria: the terracotta roof of a princely palace, crowned by a seated figure in a hat so improbable it has become the museum's symbol. Murlo is the smallest stop on the Etruscan trail — and, for the curious, one of the richest.

Tuscany's Etruscan geography tends to be told through its heavyweights — Cortona's MAEC and its bronze tablet to the east, Volterra's walls and gate to the west. Murlo is the third point of the triangle and the one nobody's coach itinerary finds: a medieval castle-village above the torrente Crevole, its lanes enclosing little more than a cathedral, the old bishops' palace and the former prisons. Inside that palace is the Museo Archeologico di Murlo — the Antiquarium di Poggio Civitate, as the Fondazione Musei Senesi also styles it — and inside the museum is a hill's worth of buried aristocracy.

Poggio Civitate: the palace under the hill

The reason a village this small holds a museum this serious stands a little way off, on the wooded rise of Poggio Civitate. Excavations there — begun by an American mission in the 1960s with the encouragement of Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, and still running today — uncovered a settlement the museum ranks among the most important in Etruria, grown prosperous on the road system that stitched the coastal Etruscan cities to those of the interior. At its heart was a princely residence built in two campaigns, one in the orientalising seventh century BC, the next in the archaic sixth; its excavation became a foundation of what is known about Etruscan residential architecture at all. Temples and tombs survive across Etruria in some number. Palaces — how power actually housed itself — barely survive anywhere, which is precisely Murlo's card.

The roof, and the man in the hat

What makes the museum worth the detour is on the second floor, where a section of the palace roof has been rebuilt at full scale with its original terracotta dress: statues along the ridge, and beneath the eaves a running frieze of moulded plaques showing the aristocratic programme in four scenes — banquet, assembly, procession, horse race. The race plaque shows riders taking their horses bareback at full stretch, and the museum's own caption permits itself the thought every Sienese visitor has already had: it is a suggestive echo, twenty-six centuries early, of the race the city still runs. We will not claim the lineage; we enjoyed the caption.

Above them all sits the "Cappellone" — the big hat. A seated male figure of the early sixth century BC, long beard squared like a spade, wearing a broad-brimmed hat turned up at the edge and rising to a tall point: the museum calls the figure absolutely unique of its kind, and its caption reaches for a Mexican sombrero by way of comparison — English-speaking archaeology's affectionate shorthand has long been a cowboy hat. The likelier reading, the museum suggests, is authority: headgear worn to magnify an eminent man, on a roofline built to be seen from the valley. He has become the emblem of the museum and, reproduced from the road signs onwards, of the village itself.

The supporting cast rewards slowness: an antefix bearing a gorgon's face, whose job was double — keeping rain off the roof timbers and evil spirits out of the house — and, elsewhere in the sequence, the acroteria, spouts and revetments that made an Etruscan roof as much a proclamation as a shelter.

The rest of the house

The first floor sets the palace's table: finds illustrating banqueting and the care of the body, imports from other Etruscan cities and from Greece, and a section devoted to the large artisans' workshop excavated beside the residence, where ceramic, bronze, ivory and bone were worked into luxury goods on site — the prince kept his makers close. The third floor turns domestic, with cooking and serving wares, singular bucchero pieces and small bronzes, before closing with the orientalising grave goods of the nearby Poggio Aguzzo necropolis, the seventh-century burials that first signalled what this territory held. The museum also runs a restoration laboratory and periodically hosts seminars on ancient techniques — goldsmithing, bronze-casting, the modelling of terracotta.

The borgo itself

Murlo repays the visit around the museum. The castle dates to the twelfth century, when it was the chief seat of the fief of the bishops of Siena — the Vescovado, a name that still clings to the place — and was remade at the end of the sixteenth century, after the Republic of Siena fell. What remains is a tiny ring of walls holding the Palazzo del Vescovo (now the museum), the cathedral beside it and the old prisons, above the Crevole valley's unbroken woods; the Riserva Naturale del Basso Merse lies close by. It is the Crete Senesi's quieter, greener neighbour — a landscape of forest rather than clay — and it asks perhaps an hour of wandering, which is exactly what it should get.

Building the Etruscan day

Murlo is the cluster's intimate chapter, best read alongside the others rather than instead of them: Cortona for the great museum and the princely tombs, Volterra for the standing city, Murlo for the domestic interior of Etruscan power — the roof, the workshop, the table. From Siena it is the shortest of the three commitments and pairs naturally with a Val di Merse or day-trip afternoon. Groups larger than seven must book by the day before; everyone else can simply climb the hill.

Practical information

• Museo Archeologico di Murlo (Antiquarium di Poggio Civitate): Piazza della Cattedrale 4, Murlo. Tel. 0577 814099 / +39 335 6859146 · poggiocivitate@museisenesi.org.
• Hours, April–September 2026: Wednesday–Sunday, 10:00–13:00 and 15:00–19:00; open on holidays falling on those days. October–March (published schedule for winter 2025–26): Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, 10:00–13:00 and 14:00–17:00; closed 25–26 December and 1 January — check the FMS page for the 2026–27 winter before travelling.
• Tickets (as published 14 Aug 2026): €6; €4 reduced (students aged 12 and up, over-65s, groups over ten, Touring Club and ICOM members); free under 11 and for disabled visitors.
• Guided visits: bookable in English (€30, groups under ten) or Italian (€20); per-person rates apply above ten. Groups over seven must book by the previous day, by phone or email.
• Network: the museum belongs to the Fondazione Musei Senesi circuit — its page there is the authority for changes.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Cappellone of Murlo? A seated male terracotta statue of the early sixth century BC from the roof of the Poggio Civitate palace — square-bearded, wearing a broad-brimmed, high-pointed hat the museum's caption likens to a sombrero. The museum calls it absolutely unique of its kind, likely marking an eminent figure's authority, and it has become the museum's symbol.

Why is Poggio Civitate important? Because it preserved a rare thing: an Etruscan princely residence, built in two phases across the seventh and sixth centuries BC, whose excavation — begun by an American mission in the 1960s and still ongoing — became a cornerstone of what is known about Etruscan residential architecture, down to the decorated terracotta roof now rebuilt in the museum.

When is the Murlo museum open? In season (April–September 2026), Wednesday to Sunday, 10:00–13:00 and 15:00–19:00; in winter (schedule as published for 2025–26), weekends and holidays only, 10:00–13:00 and 14:00–17:00. Entry is €6, and groups over seven must book by the previous day.

By the Siena & Toscana editors