A Sunday Morning in Tuscany - A Visit to San Leonardo Church and the Etruscan Archaeological Museum

Hello my friends. Today I wanted to share our visit to an archaeological museum and a church in Tuscany. As you walk along a small dirt road, you might suddenly come across a historical architectural gem from the 10th century. This is San Leonardo Church. We were lucky today because the church was open. It was Sunday. After that we continued exploring other interesting places.

We loved the church. First of all it being open was a nice surprise for us. It turns out the church only opens for services. The services are held once a week, on Sundays. So, if you want to see the original church of San Leonardo, you’ll need to head to the outskirts of the town of Carmignano on a Sunday morning.

I also really liked the congregation. They were warm, friendly and pleasant people. They tried to convince us to stay for the service, but since we had my nephews with us, two little kids. We politely declined and had to leave the church. I guess attending the service with children wouldn't have been enjoyable for either the congregation or the priest leading the ceremony.

After leaving the church we saw how beautiful the weather and nature were and decided there was no need to take the car. We had already planned to walk to our next destination. This was Artimino, a town or more like a village, where we wanted to visit an archaeological museum dedicated to the Etruscans.

We kept walking, admiring and being inspired by the Tuscan landscapes. My nephews love and are very interested in archaeology. In fact we mainly went to this small archaeological museum for them, but it turned out to be a fascinating place. The museum focuses primarily on the Etruscans. The Etruscan civilization is quite intriguing because it has been minimally researched and remains mysterious.

Since we visited a museum dedicated to this civilization today, let me tell you a bit about the Etruscans. The Etruscans lived in Central Italy before the Roman era. They were a highly developed civilization active in various fields. In fact, the Romans learned a lot from the Etruscans. For example, glass vases and the ivory artifacts in the museum are good examples. Ivory items like vases and bowls show that the Etruscans were also engaged in trade.

The Etruscans were also involved in seafaring, as they didn’t produce some of these goods themselves. However, they did create products using a different technique called bucchero, a type of pottery that mimicked bronze. These ceramics were highly successful, even in Ancient Greece. Today most of what we know about the Etruscans comes from tomb excavations. In the museum there was a small model display and a little further ahead, we could see a reconstructed warrior’s tomb.

Our short trip ends here. As always, I collected plenty of brochures, but today we managed without buying any books. Wishing you all a lovely morning, day or evening. A productive workweek or a relaxing weekend. Take care, my friends, see you next time.