OLD STONES
In the run of History Tuscia has been inhabited by different civilizations, first of which the Etruscans, who populated the area between the 8th and the 3rd century b.C. During this period Tuscia acquainted a high rank of culture and business as it became one of the most important terminals for trade with minor Asia and Greece. Art as well, thanks to the tuiton of the greek masters, gave birth to a remarkable production of vases, sarcophagi and the famous winged horses (National Museum of Tarquinia) along with tombs, most of them underground, frescoed with mineral colors on a plaster surface (macco) rich of marine fossiles, which can be nowadays visited in the area of Tar­quinia. A different genre of funerary art is still visible in Norchia where imposing necropolis are cui out of tufaceous cliffs on the top of deep gulleys. The Middle Ages represented the political and religious rising of Viterbo which became the popes seat for about seventy years until the famous Conclave. The coeval romanesque basilicas of S. Pietro and S. Maria Maggiore of Tuscania, undoubtley represent a mile stone in the italian history of art. Renaissance was an era of culture and travelling which marked a new term between man and Universe also thanks to the new geographic discoveries carried out in that period. The Farnese Palace in Caprarola and the Villa Lante in Bagnaia are evidence of the vogue of those times rested on the grandeur of the patronage of important families. The monster park of Bomarzo, built by Vicino Orsini towards the end of the 16th century, completes the panorama of the Renaissance villas in the province.