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 On
the Monterozzi hill, at approx. 3 km from town, lies the Necropoli
Etrusca with about 6.000 tombs of every shape and dimension,
many of which completely painted. It is certainly one of the
most important among the necropolises known up to now, because
it comprises many room-type tombs with decorations which can
be considered the most complete documentation of the development
of the Etruscan painting from the 6th to the 2nd century BC.
For security and conservational reasons, besides the tombal
complex "Scataglini" (from 11.30 to 14.30), only nine tombs
are actually open for visits (from 09.00 until 1 hour before
sunset): Fior di Loto, Leonesse, Gorgoneion, Cardarelli, Fustigazioni,
Giocolieri, Caronte, Leopardi, Baccanti.
Leaving the
town in direction Monteromano, turn left after 7 km at the
end of the Roman aqueduct: following the signs, you reach
a hill where you will see the rests of the ancient Etruscan
town, the Civita, with the "Altar of the Queen" (Ara
della Regina), an enormous basement of a majestic temple,
where the famous winged horses were found, which now stay
in the Museo Nazionale Etrusco in town.
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 The
Palazzo Vitelleschi has been built around the middle
of the 15th century by Giovanni Vitelleschi, called the "Iron
Cardinal", born in Tarquinia, pontifical condottiere and implacable
enemy of the Di Vico family, which had dominated for a long
time all around the Tuscia and the castle of which had already
been destroyed by Cardinal Albornoz in 1355. It was Cardinal
Vitelleschi who brought to an end the last tyrant of the family,
Giacomo, whom he captured together with his three children
in his castle in Vetralla and whom he beheaded in the main
square of Soriano nel Cimino. The two magnificent Gothic windows
on the main front belong to the older part of the building,
while other elements like the triangular tympanum of the entrance
witness subsequent modifications. The elegant internal court
with its arcades leads to the different rooms on the ground
level and to the upper floors.
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 The
palazzo houses the Museo Nazionale Etrusco, among the
most important museums in Italy. Along the sides of the entrance,
two sarcophagi of the 2nd century BC in nenfro, a local tuff
type, while the arcades of the court shelter various Etruscan,
Roman and medieval remains. The rooms on the ground floor
contain a series of sarcophagi, among which those of the Etruscan
families Partunus, Pulena and Camna, all very remarkable.
On the first floor are exhibited the winged horses, the elegant
sculpture found at the "Ara della Regina" in the Etruscan
Acropolis, and which adorned the tympanum of the Temple. The
show-cases of the adiacent rooms contain various archeological
material from the Villanova to the Roman period, documentating
the evolution of the Greque and Etruscan vase painting in
its different forms. On the second floor, you can see the
paintings of four tombs (Triclinio, Bighe, Olimpiadi e Nave)
taken off the tomb-walls in the fifties.
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Recently,
has been opened a subterranean museum, Etruscopolis,
which has been settled at 50 metres depth in an Etruscan macco(local
tuff) -pit with an extension of 15.000 m2 . In the natural
environment of the pit has been reconstructed a plastic model
of the ancient Tarquinia(based on the survey of the Lerici
Foundation) and seven famous tombs with all their equipment
and their frescoes. In several rooms are exhibited pottery,
tools and utensils of the Etruscan period.
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 The
Chiesa di S. Maria in Castello rises
on the rocks of the western part of the town, dominating the
valley of the Marta river down to the Tyrrhenian Sea. It has
been declared Monument of National Interest in 1975. Its construction
began in 1121 and was terminated in 1208, when it had been
consecrated in the presence of ten bishops. Of Romanesque
style, it has a front with three portals, the middle of which
with Cosmatesque decorations. Also the pavement of the three
aisles show traces of Cosmatesque mosaics. In the right aisle
can be found an octagonal immersion font, in the nave a beautiful
pulpit of 1209, in the presbitery an altar and a tabernacle
dating back to 1166. The splendid hemispheric cupola, which
rose on top of a cylindric tambour, decorated on the inside
and outside with marble columns supporting a row of blind
arches, collapsed after a strong earthquake in 1819. On a
square in front of the church stands a slender medieval tower.
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Besides the
Etruscan Tarquinia, you can admire as well the medieval Tarquinia
with its Centro, surrounded by long tracts of town-walls.
The ancient Corneto, which changed its name into Tarquinia
definitively only in 1922, besides the magnificent building
of the Palazzo Comunale, can boast many Romanesque churches,
among which San Martino, dell'Annunziata, San Giovanni Battista,
San Pancrazio, S. Francesco and the Cathedral dedicated to
S. Maria and S. Margherita, rebuilt after a fire in 1643:
in the presbitery, the left-over Romanesque and Gothic part,
there are the frescoes of Antonio da Viterbo, called the Pastura,
a follower of the painting of the Pinturicchio and of the
Perugino.
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 This
medieval centre acts as a frame for various manifestations
throughout the year: Giostra delle Contrade (the five
quarters, after a cortege in medieval costumes, challenge
each other in the Saracens' tournament); Giostra degli
Sponsali (commemorates the marriage between Sante Vitelleschi
and Costanza dei Conti of the Anguillara, historical cortege
and dinner with musical entertainment and horse games at night);
Itinerario Presepistico (30 cribs in as many churches,
palaces, monuments). On August,15th , Our Lady's Ascension
, is held on the board of the sea the Processione del Mare,
during which the statue of Our Lady is carried at night by
an illuminated boat at short distance along the shore, followed
by a crowd of other boats; an immense fire-work concludes
the event.
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