The center of Massa Marittima is located on one of the southern offshoots of the Metalliferous Hills, which constitute the main and most extensive system of the plain and marine area of the Tuscan Anti-Apennines.
There is a splendid historic center with lots of architecture and places of art to visit including:
Cathedral of San Cerbone, dating back to the mid-twelfth century, is the main religious building of the Metalliferous Hills. It represents one of the most important monuments of Romanesque architecture in Maremma and Tuscany. Inside, among the numerous works, many of which are now housed in the Museum of Sacred Art of Massa Marittima, we note a baptismal font by Giroldo da Como from the 15th century and a Madonna with Child by Duccio di Buoninsegna.
Church and convent of San Pietro all’Orto, a building dating back to 1197, one of the oldest churches in Massa Marittima, in the first half of the 13th century it was used as a cathedral. In 1273 it passed to the Augustinian order who built the convent there. In 1312, following the construction of the adjacent church of Sant’Agostino, it became an oratory and was later incorporated into the convent. In the 19th century it became the property of the municipality and was used as a school. Today the church houses the headquarters of the Terziere di Città Nuova and the museum of the Santa Cecilia organs, while the museum of sacred art has been set up in the convent with the Angiolino Martini contemporary art exhibition centre. The parish of San Pietro all’Orto has about 3620 inhabitants.
Palazzo Comunale, an imposing travertine structure that dominates Piazza Garibaldi, is made up of the union of two tower houses built in different periods: the Torre del Bargello, on vicolo Massaini, which dates back to the 13th century, the the second dates back to 1334 and was originally lower than we see it today. The central body that unites the two towers is from the 14th century, in Gothic style. Inside is the chapel of the Priors, dating back to 1525 and frescoed by Bartolomeo Neroni, known as Riccio, with stories taken from Genesis. The facade is made up of three series of mullioned windows and the Medici coat of arms, placed in 1563, dominates the centre.
Palazzo dell’Abbondanza, ancient warehouses and granaries with three pointed arches whose construction began in 1265 with the public sources, in fact called Fonti dell’Abbondanza. The warehouses remained in use until 1778 and subsequently the structure was used as a theatre: the Teatro, and then also the Cinema, Goldoni. In 2001 a national competition was announced to transform the building into a congress hall, won by the CMT group of architects, who between 2005 and 2007 restored the building creating a work of contemporary architecture integrated into the medieval fabric. In 1999, a fresco was brought to light on the internal wall of the sources, the tree of fertility, which represents a tree from whose branches fall phallic-shaped fruits collected by lively women who compete for possession.
Archaeological area of Lake Accesa: the remains of an Etruscan settlement divided into five districts were found near the lake starting in 1980, each of them consisting of a residential area and a necropolis . In June 2001, the Accesa Lake Archaeological Park was established.
The Museum of Sacred Art of Massa Marittima is the main art gallery of Massa Marittima (GR) and is housed in the museum complex of San Pietro all’Orto, together with the Angiolino Martini Contemporary Art Exhibition Centre.
A vast collection of works from the historical-artistic period from the 1300s to the 1400s is on display. The main work of the museum is The Majesty of Ambrogio Lorenzetti.
The works exhibited inside come mainly from the cathedral of San Cerbone and from other churches in Massa Marittima, thanks to an agreement between the Municipality, the Superintendency for the artistic and historical heritage of Grosseto and Siena and the diocese of Massa Marittima-Piombino.
The Giovannangelo Camporeale Archaeological Museum was founded in 1867, but has only been housed in the Palazzo del Podestà since 1978. The structure is dedicated to the prehistoric archeology of the Massa area, from the prehistoric age up to VII-VI century BC with the Etruscan artifacts found thanks to the excavations of the nineties.
The Mining Museum is divided into three galleries arranged on a single level for a total of about seven hundred metres. The first gallery illustrates the process of abatement of the mineral; the second the various armor systems placed to support the vaults (wooden armor – chestnut or acacia – or metal armor, the nailing of the seventies or the all-round one for friable soils such as clay, alternating bricks with wood, and finally the most water resistant concrete reinforcement and the bunk one, the safest of all); the third proposes some characteristic rooms of daily life in the mine (the canteen and the workshop) and an exhibition of minerals (galena, chalcopyrite, pyrite, limonite, magnetite and gypsum).
The ancient Frantoio from the eighteenth-nineteenth century provides a valid historical testimony of a peasant civilization that no longer exists, allowing the visitor a real visual reconstruction of a typical environment of daily life in the Maremma city. The factor that makes the mill so interesting is the completeness of the entire apparatus, a relevant example of the processing of olives with both animal and human energy.
The large cogwheel with pegs remains perfectly preserved, the prototype of which was first designed by Leonardo da Vinci, connected to the granite millstone through a lever to which the mule and the press were yoked, a manually operated oak press which it was used to crush the olive paste produced by the millstone. There are also objects useful for carrying out the work, such as the bruscole, circular bags of woven straw where the olive paste was placed during the press, the measuring cups for the retail sale of the oil and the tool for toasting the barley. At the entrance to the mill you can see the equipment for selling virgin olive oil, pomace oil and the foundation, which was used for oil lamps. The back of the room was instead used as a stable for the mule.