The Museo Etrusco Guarnacci in Volterra is one of the oldest public museums in Europe and houses one of the most important collections of Etruscan antiquities in the world. Founded as the Civic Museum in 1732 thanks to the donation of Pietro Franceschini, it quickly enriched itself with numerous archaeological finds discovered in the territory of Volterra, particularly thanks to the substantial collection of Monsignor Mario Guarnacci.

Since 1877, the museum has been located in Palazzo Desideri Tangassi, where authentic masterpieces of ancient art are preserved, including the Urn of the Spouses, the Montebradoni crater, the Stele of Avile Tite, the Kourotrophos Maffei, and the Shadow of the Evening, the famous bronze depicting a child with elongated forms.

The exhibition path also boasts the largest collection of Hellenistic cinerary urns in Etruria, a testimony to the rich and cultured aristocracy of ancient Velathri. The faces and bodies depicted on the urns encapsulate all the charm of the Etruscan people, while the reliefs on the coffins narrate daily life, affections, and the mythological universe that animated the Etruscan imagination between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC.