What? Go to Florence to visit an archaeological museum? What about the great monuments of the Renaissance, or the museums and galleries stuffed with masterpieces that changed the world? A good question – though if you are in Florence, then I would heartily endorse a visit to one of Italy’s least known great collections of antiquities. Certainly, when I was last there before COVID-19 changed the world in its own way, the queues to visit the Duomo and Uffizi snaked around the city’s historic centre. Walk a short way to the Piazza della Santissima Annunziata, where Duke Ferdinand I sits mounted on guard, and you find the rather unassuming 17th-century Palazzo della Crocetta, a cool haven of calm masterpieces.
The collection within is eclectic. The very first Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo I Medici, assembled a fine collection of representations of Hercules, his own avatar, and was recorded by Giorgio Vasari as arranging these on the shelves of his office. Ludovic II created a very impressive assemblage of Egyptian antiquities in the great collecting years of the early 19th century. This section was opened in 1855, but then massively enlarged to create the national museum, a proud achievement of the Italian Risorgimento in 1871.
Etruscan marvels
While there are impressive artefacts from all periods within, including a fantasy courtyard made from sculptural fragments of Roman Florentia, its glory is really the series of Etruscan antiquities. The territory of Tuscany stretched over much of central Italy, and so there is material here from all over the Etruscan world – from inland hill towns and ‘loot’ from the vast cemeteries of the coastal cities. This actually begins in the museum’s courtyard garden. The large central space has been reworked into a collection of tombs, virtually all the standard Etruscan types, from tumuli to cist graves.
