Exhibition “Over 7,000 Meters of History: The Etruscan Walls of Volterra”

The Santa Maria Maddalena Exhibition Center reopens to the public following a closure for maintenance, with a packed calendar of events set to enliven Volterra in the coming months.

The first event is the photography exhibition “Over 7,000 Meters of History: The Etruscan Walls of Velathri” by the late photographer Damiano Dainelli, who, through his work, highlighted significant aspects of Volterra’s history, such as the imposing Etruscan walls featured in the photographs on display.

Stretching over 7,000 meters, the walls of Volterra (in Etruscan “Velathri”) represent one of the largest Etruscan wall systems ever built: a colossal structure whose remains still define the landscape of Volterra today. Built with cyclopean blocks of local benchstone—perfectly fitted together and worked with extraordinary precision—the city walls enclosed an area of 116 hectares and reached heights of up to 10 meters in some places.

The layout was not random: designed to take advantage of the morphology of the hill on which the city stands, it included water sources, agricultural areas, and spaces capable of accommodating and protecting, if necessary, even the population living outside the city walls. The Arco and Diana gates are today the most significant remnants of this.

The exhibition is open from April 1 to May 27