Santa Maria della Scala

Museum paths

The Archaeological Museum has been set up in Santa Maria della Scala’s expressly restored underground rooms, which were used as storerooms, warehouses and technical spaces. The museum presents archaeological collections and materials coming from the Sienese territory exhibited on a surface of approx. 2500 square metres. It can be visited following a highly evocative continuous sequence in which works are arranged according to topographic criteria along with pieces from the collections that progressively became part of the Sienese museum.
The latter in fact were arranged for the first time by the great Sienese scholar Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli in 1933 as Municipal Antiquarium. They consisted of donations by Sienese noblemen and scholars that, starting from the mid-Eighteenth century, flowed into the public library (Biblioteca degli Intronati) where a first nucleus of antiquities was formed and enriched, during the 19th century, with additional bequests and materials found in town during the excavations.
Further donations were added such as, for example, those by Marquis Piero Bargagli Petrucci and Marquis Chigi Zondadari, mostly consisting of finds and materials from excavations carried out in family estates.