How Volterra was built and evolved over time

Volterra is built in layers that have never been cleared away, and all of them are still readable.

The Etruscan city underneath

The hill was fortified and settled by the late 8th century BC, and the Etruscan circuit was much larger than the medieval town that sits inside it. That is why fragments of ancient wall turn up out in open fields well beyond the present gates: the modern town occupies a fraction of Velathri.

The Porta all'Arco of the 3rd–2nd centuries BC is the best single piece of evidence. Its lower courses are Etruscan, built in large dressed blocks laid without mortar, with later work above — and it is still the way into that part of town. A gate in continuous use for over two thousand years is an engineering statement as much as a historical one.

The Roman layer

The theatre of the 1st century BC was built below the northern side of the hill, outside the inhabited area, and was buried for centuries until it was excavated in the 1950s. Because it lies below the walls, the whole plan reads from above — the seating curve, the orchestra, the stage building — in a way it does not from inside. That accident of levels makes it one of the most legible Roman theatres in Italy.

The medieval town

The Palazzo dei Priori, begun in 1208 and finished in 1257, sets the idiom: tall, flat-fronted, built in grey-brown local stone, with small openings and no softness. Volterra's medieval architecture is defensive in feel in a way that Pienza's, a Renaissance project, simply is not.

The fortress

The Fortezza Medicea of the 1470s was built by Florence to hold a conquered town, and its form says so: massive, low, round-towered, sited to dominate rather than to be admired. It is a prison now, so it can only be seen from outside.

The stone

Alabaster — soft, translucent, locally quarried — has been carved here since the 8th century BC. It is a material for objects rather than buildings, which is why the town is built of ordinary stone and famous for what it makes from the extraordinary kind.