Sarcophagi from Etruscan necropolis

During the Etruscan period the population was scattered over the area and mainly grew cereal as is attested in the valley area currently known as Chiana Romana. In the essay “Clusium” published in the magazine “Ancient Monuments” in 1925, Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli spoke of the Etruscan finds in the area of Città della Pieve, placed under the dominion of Chiusi: the findings of Poggio Cavaliere, Poderi Palazzaccio and Torraccia, led to the hypothesis of the existence of a necropolis belonging to Chiusi or to a hypothetical Etruscan centre of Città della Pieve. Francesco Roncalli, in the exhibition catalogue of 1988 “Antiquities of Umbria in the  Vatican”, speaks about the obelisk located inside the Corgna palace as a piece of furniture for a temple hypothesized near the confluence of River Astrone with that of Chiana and therefore near Poggio Cavaliere.

In the list of materials found in the Pieve area there were no sarcophagi known to us, except for the one in alabaster from Butarone and was part of the Taccini Collection of Città della Pieve until 1888, when it was purchased by the Archaeological Museum of Florence: the last discovery of two sarcophagi and the tomb of St. Donnino constitute the southernmost finds in the Pieve area.