CHIUSI on its plateau of tuff. It is difficult to realise, as one wanders through its medieval streets such as the delightuf Via Lavinia that this town was once a great power, perhaps the greatest city of Etruria (Clusium): it marched against Rome, besieged it and partly occupied it, when Lars Porsena of Clusium tried to restore Tarquin the Proud to the throne.
Something remains of its Etruscan wealth, in spite of the fearful antiquarian tooting (material from Chiusi is found in every considerable museum in the world).
There is an important collection of urns, sarcopraghi and bronzes in the Museum (don't miss the impressive archaic Funeral Mask of the VII century BC, the tombstone with dance scenes, the Sphinx). In the same piazza there is the Cathedral, ancient (12° century) but disastrously restored.
The custodian of the Museum will arrange for a guide to visit some of the Etruscan Tombs in the neighbourhood, at least the Tomb of the Monkey, with paintings of athletics and dancing, the del Colic tomb with its vault painted in red and blue and a frieze with a chariot race and a banquet.
It is 11 km. (7 mi.) from Chiusi to CITTA' DELLA PIEVE, birthplace of Perugino who left two fine Panel Paintings in the Cathedral, Romanesque-Gothic of the 12°-13° centuries an Epiphany in the Oratory of Santa Maria del Bianchi and another fresco in San Pietro. The road now winds through beautiful country until, on the skyline, rises a towered city built on a high bastion of reddish rock.
