Museo Etrusco Guarnacci
Museo Etrusco Guarnacci historical timeline
Last updated on October 14, 2026- — Mario Guarnacci is born at Volterra. He will become a noble abbot and, in the museum's own words, a zealous collector of antiquities.
- before 1761 — Guarnacci buys Palazzo Maffei, in what was then via Guidi and is now via Matteotti, expressly to house his collection.
- — the museum is founded: Guarnacci donates his archaeological patrimony, over 600 funerary urns, together with a library of more than 50,000 volumes, to "the citizens of the city of Volterra". It becomes one of the oldest public museums in Europe.
- 1767 — Guarnacci publishes Origini Italiche, a book controversial in its own day, arguing that Greek and Latin culture originated in an antecedent Etruscan civilisation.
- — Guarnacci dies, and the collection and library are moved into the thirteenth-century Palazzo dei Priori.
- — Bishop Incontri donates the bronze votive figurines and jewellery from the tomb at Gesseri di Berignone.
- — with the collection grown by gifts, purchases and the museum's own excavations, the director Niccolò Maffei transfers it to Palazzo Desideri Tangassi, where it remains.
- 1892 and 1898 — the necropoleis of the Badia and the Guerrucia are excavated; their material fills the first ground-floor room.
- — further finds from the site, from the Warrior's Tomb, are discovered — including a bronze crested helmet and a laminated bronze flask — and added to the display.
Verified against Wikipedia, October 2026.