Museo Archeologico di Vulci e Castello dell’Abbadia

Vulci archaeological museum opened in 1975, inside the Castello della Badia. The six defensive towers of the trapezoidal twelfth century fortress strategically overlook the River Fiora. Traces of the earliest defensive structure on the site date back to the ninth century. It was built with blocks of dark volcanic rock. Its eastern side is protected by a moat. Sixteenth century enlargements were at the hands of the Farnese, Dukes of Castro. In the seventeenth century it was used as a customs post for the Papal States.

In 1808 it fell into the hands of Luciano Bonaparte, before being bought by the Torlonias in 1856. It was theirs until 1960, when it was bought up by the state. The new museum layout opened in 2016. You can find the centuries’ long history of Vulci, from its birth as an Etruscan urban centre between the ninth and eighth centuries BCE, to the Roman conquest, in 280 BCE.