Museo di Palazzo Orsini

This museum is housed in Palazzo Orsini, together with the Museo Civico Archeologico della Civiltà Etrusca.

It displays the most magnificent and priceless works collected from churches all over the Pitigliano diocese, including stunning jewellery, silverware, coins, beautifully carved wooden sculptures, canvas and wood paintings and rich, vibrantly coloured fabrics.

The gorgeous 15th century painting of the Madonna with Child and Saints Peter and Francis comes from the Cathedral in Sovana and is attributed to the Sienese Guidoccio Cozzarelli

The tabernacle of the Pietà, also on display here, dates between 1467 and 1470 and is said to hold the reliquary arms of Bishop Tommaso Testa-Piccolomini – slightly macabre maybe, but undeniably fascinating.

But the museum’s most prized possessions are the late 14th century coloured glasses from Cathedral of Pitigliano, and the holy shrine of Flora and Lucilla, shaped like a Gothic temple in gilded copper and enamel.

The shrine is said to be the work of a Lombard goldsmith in the 15th century and originally stood in Santa Fiora.

Also keep an eye out for the beautiful and incredibly evocative painting of St Michael the Archangel freeing souls from purgatory by Francesco Zuccarelli, an artist born in 1702 in Pitigliano. And, in another section of the museum which was once a dining room, a cycle of frescoes depicting the Orsini Counts.