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Museums and Libraries
There are three cultural institutions,
the Museo dell'Accademia Etrusca, the Civic and Academy Library
and the Historic Civic Archive located in Palazzo Casali where the
historic Etruscan Academy has its headquarters. The museum is located
on the first and top floor, the Library which can be entered from
the courtyard of the palace is tucked away on the mezzanine and
at the top floor. While the Historic Archive has its entrance on
Via Casali on the mezzanine.
MUSEO DELL'ACCADEMIA ETRUSCA
In 1727, due to the initiative of three brothers, Marcello, Ridolfino
and Filippo Venuti, the Etruscan Academy was born. The Grand Duke
of Tuscany, Giangastone dei Medici gave them the use of some of
the space in Palazzo Casali where the members could meet. The availability
of this space then made it possible to install the Academy museum
and library, which was and has continued to be the hub around which
studies and research promoted by Cortonese institutions continue
to rotate.
The museum and the library in fact, were born when one of the members
Onofrio Baldelli (1667-1728), an uncle of the Venuti's, donated
to the Academy a number of statues, idols, inscriptions, urns, pateras
(drinking dishes), cut gems, lanterns, votives and other precios
things, to which he added a collection of rare books and antique
manuscripts which he had collected during the course of his life
as a scholar. At that time, and it fact for all of the 1700 and
1800's ,a passion for the private collection of ancient objects
developed among the people who had the culture and means available
to collect them. Some of these collections revealed to be valuable
from a cultural point of view. It happened that with their death
some of the members left their collections to the Academy conferming
the public role and the educational function which they had intended
the Academy to be when they founded it.
 One
of the last important donations was that of the member Girolamo
Tommasi. With his death in 1896, the oldest branch of his prestigious
Cortonese family ended. The donation of his collections, among which
there were interesting furniture, let visitors have an idea of what
the inside of some of these palaces which were previously described
might have looked like and how the cibility of the city lived.
The gathering of the various collections of the Museum, other than
the donations made its members, are also due to the aquisitions
made with sacrifice by them, as in the cas of the famous Eturscan
Lamp. The members in the near absence of a regular funding have
made the development of the museum and the library possible. They
have until now, conferred on the museum an outstanding image of
originality and to the library a wealth of writings. Among the most
important of these are works of humanistic culture, particolarly
rich are the writings from the 1700's.
All of the material is subdivided into three sections:
-The archeological collection
-The Egyptian collection
-The Medieval and Modern collection
Only a few of the most important pieces from the three collections
will be described. Morfe information can be obtained by consulting
when needed the the guidebook which can be purchased at the ticket
office of the museum.
The Archeological Collection
The most important piece of the archeological collection is the
Etruscan Lamp which is placed in an independant display in Sala
II (Hall 2) next to the entrance hall which is also called the hall
of the Biscione. The entrance hall is called the Biscione as there
is the crest which was at one time of monsignor Giovanni Visconti
(the archbishop of Milano in the 1300's) displayed there and on
which there is a figure of a water snake (in Italian biscia). The
lamp was destined to a very important, sacred building. It came
from an Etrurian workshop from the central-northern area and can
be dated around the fourth century before Christ. It was rediscovered
in 1840 in the suburb of "Fratta" and was acquired by
the members of the Etruscan Academy for the hugae sum of 1600 Florentine
scudi.
The external ring corresponds to the underside of the sputs and
is ornamented with alternating figures of sileni and sirens, the
first are playing a double flute called the siringa and the latter
have their hands across their chests. Some dolphins splash about
on a ring of stylized waves, while on a ring closer to the central
part of the lamp there are a series of hunting animals. At the center,
surrounded by a crown of snakes is the figure of a Gargoyle face
with an open mouth and its tongue hanging out. Between the spouts
where the flames would burn are sixteen figures which are also finely
worked.
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