History and Art
Tarquinia, cradle of the Etruscan civilization, gently faces the Tyrrhenian Sea and still witnesses a long-lasting story; a story that from the legend of Tagete, the young Etruscan boy, leads us up to our times.
Etruscan Tarquinia, famous and powerful, used to rise on the hill of the Civita. After its destruction, the present conurbation grew on the opposite hill where Medieval Tarquinia knew a new and great splendour.
Its high towers, its sober and elegant Romanesque churches and its bright city-walls lead us back to that glorious past.
Art
The Museum is housed in the Vitelleschi Palace (built in the first half of the 15th century). Here you can find some fine Etruscan sarcophagi in the rooms to the right on the ground floor. On the first floor there is material from the Villanovan to the Roman periods documenting the development of Greek and Etruscan vase painting in its various forms.
You will find the famous Winged Horses (IV-III cent. BC.) in a room by the stairway leading to the 2nd floor. This once formed part of the decoration of the temple known as the Ara della Regina which stood in the Acropolis nearby.
The Etruscan Necropolis lies about three kilometres (around 2 miles) from the town. There are numerous tombs with wall decorations that constitute the most complete documentation of the development of painting from the VI to II centuries B.C. The City is surrounded by a medieval wall with tall towers and boasts important monuments including a number of beautiful churches.
Santa Maria in Castello is a splendid Romanesque building of 1121, probably built on a pre-existing construction with a simple rectangular facade above which is a small sail vault dome. There are three doorways: the central one and the mullioned windows above have some valuable Cosmatesque decorations. The temple has several marble works by Roman masters.
Santa Maria di Valverde was originally built in Romanesque style and later rebuilt. Behind the high altar there is a marble niche containing a valuable Byzantine painting of the Madonna and Child.
The Cathedral is a large building in Romanesque-Gothic style rebuilt after a fire in 1643. There are some fine Pastura's frescoes in the presbytery which has a fine pointed triumphal arch and cross vaulting.
San Martino dates from the 12th century and possesses a simple facade in pure Romanesque style decorated with strip-pilasters surmounted by a fascia of small arches and porticos in ashlar and alternating black and white. The interior has the remains of a fresco from the Senese School.
Annunziata (to see the church apply to the porter's lodge of the near-by Orphanage) is a pretty Romanesque building belonging to the 12th-13th centuries.
San Pancrazio is a Romanesque-Gothic church built in the 13th century. The bell-tower, with a double order of mullioned windows and Moorish type cusps in elliptic sections and centre ribbings in relief, is inserted into the facade which itself has a fine doorway over which is an elegant rose-window.
The Town Hall (Palazzo Comunale) is a Romanesque building that has been much restored and possesses a large external stairway. The square in front boasts an elegant fountain built in 1721.
San Giovanni Battista was built in the 13th century in Romanesque style. It has a simple facade with three doorways: the central one, with a Gothic arch, is surmounted by a fine rose-window.
San Francesco was built in the early of 14th century in Romanesque-Gothic style. The facade has an elegant rose-window and a Gothic doorway. To the right, behind the transept, the 17th century bell-tower has a dome built by a follower of Bramante. Other churches and monuments are signed on the city plan.
The ruins of the ancient Gravisca, the pier "Clementino" and the XVIII century village called "Saline" together with the nearby "Natural Oasis" make the Lido of Tarquinia precious, now one of the most renowned sites on the Tyrrhenian Sea and worth visiting during the bathing season.
Along the Tarquinian coast you can also find Marina Velka, well-known for its golf course.