Museo Archeologico "Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli"

The Archaeological Museum "Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli" is located in Colle di Val d'Elsa and is housed in the fourteenth-century Palazzo del Podesta. Inside are collected finds from the High Valdelsa and in particular the districts of Colle di Val d'Elsa and Monteriggioni. The first nucleus of the Museum was formed in the mid-70s when some members of the Archaeological Colligiano Group became an intermediary between the city administration and the Countess Terrosi, owner of one of the most important local archaeological collections that had intended to sell it ; Terrosi the Collection was formed between 800 and '900 particularly thanks to the excavations carried out in their properties in the Plain of Casone. The town bought numerous items of great value in particular were the findings that came from the great family of the underground Calisna Sepu, discovered at the end of the 800 and the subject of one of the first studies of Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli in the twenties of the last century. From then on, the museum is constantly enlarged and expanded its collections thanks in particular to the work of the Archaeological Colligiano Group for over thirty years carries out its work of protection and preservation of the historical and archaeological heritage in the municipality. Today in it are complex tomb, finds and reconstructions that make from Colle Museum one of the most important of the Sienese. Worth special mention is the reconstruction of the Etruscan kiln dating from the third century. B.C. discovered in locations Quartaia both the finds coming from two major Etruscan tombs of the Colle Villas and Dometaia. The real jewel in the exhibition, however, are flowers Kit late Orientalizing tomb of Campiglia dei Foci, called Tomb Pierini named by the owner of the land where it is dug, in which stands a vase with a dedicatory inscription dated to the beginning gemino the sixth century but especially the magnificent reconstruction of an Etruscan girl's face, made by leading experts in the field of the University of Pisa, buried 2,500 years ago in a tomb in the Le Porciglia.