Volterra historical timeline

Volterra has the longest continuous history of any town in this group, and almost every phase of it is still standing.

1. by the late 8th century BC — the Etruscan city of Velathri, also recorded as Vlathri, is established. The town has been continuously inhabited as a city since at least then, which is the fundamental fact about the place.
2. 8th century BC — alabaster carving begins here. It has never stopped, and it remains the traditional Volterran trade today.
3. 3rd–2nd centuries BC — the Porta all'Arco is built. It still carries traffic.
4. 1st century BC — the Roman theatre of Vallebuona is built below the northern side of the town.
5. 1208 — the Palazzo dei Priori is begun; it is finished in 1257, and is the centre of the medieval town.
6. the 1470s — the Fortezza Medicea is built, after Florence took the town. It is still a prison, which makes it one of the longest-serving buildings of its kind anywhere.
7. 1761 — the abbot Mario Guarnacci (Volterra 1701–1785) donates his archaeological collection, together with a library of more than 50,000 volumes, to "the public of the city of Volterra". The Museo Guarnacci is founded, and becomes one of the oldest public museums in Europe.
8. 1785 — Guarnacci dies, and the collection and library are moved into the thirteenth-century Palazzo dei Priori.
9. 1877 — the director Niccolò Maffei moves the museum to Palazzo Desideri Tangassi, where it remains.
10. the 1950s — the Roman theatre is excavated, recovering a building that had been buried for centuries.
11. 2025 — the commune has 9,366 residents across 252 km², the smallest population of the five towns in this group.