In the halls of the Palazzo della Prepositura, adjacent to the ancient Pieve, has been housed since 1996 the Civic Archaeological and the collegiate church Museum. Through these exhibition spaces the visitor has the opportunity to take an interesting trip into the history of Casole: from the most ancient etruscan until the middle of the century just ended, to discover the habits, society, art and cultural ties with the nearby reality. Archaeological findings dating back to the late orientalisation and archaic as craters attics and a rare female head (VI century) carved in Apuan marble, which derives from the models of the Greek statuary, real excellence of this collection, denote openings of the territory to trade and a level of economic and cultural rather high. The same is true for the discovery of two singular affibbiagli (VI century) depicting the oldest depiction of boxing of the Etruscan world, also derived from Greek models.
In the hellenistic period instead, the ski area of Casole subdued the political and cultural influence of Volterra, as is evident in the numerous funerary coeval, which show the polls in tuff and ceramics painted black assimilable to productions Volterra. The bond with the one that was the most important city of the northern Etruria lasted even in the high Middle Ages, so much so that until 1260 the Castle of Casole depended from the jurisdiction of the bishop of Volterra. After that date it passed under the dominion of the Republic of Siena, that without solution of continuity it addressed the fruitful artistic culture of up to half of the Nineteenth Century. In most cases the artists active in Casole were senesi, the exception is the formidable meteora Marco Romano, among the greatest sculptors italian gothic, represented in the museum from another excellence as the small head of the Prophet (1318 ca.) in alabaster marble.
The most ancient remains date back to the beginning of the Fourteenth Century, when to open sites in the ancient Parish Church of Santa Maria Assunta, consecrated in 1161 (essential to the completion of the museum), worked a group of painters pupils of Duccio and important sculptors as Gano di Fazio and Marco Romano. Also in age late gothic and renaissance the consigner casolese continued to entrust the works to the sienese artists, in giving and in a have that saw among the major painters active in Siena between the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the Seventeenth Century, Alessandro Casolani born At Mensano, a castle of the countryside of Casole, between 1552 and 1553. In the room dedicated to the artist are collected some youth paintings among which stands out a beautiful Madonna with Child and San Giovannino, three drawings and a particular wooden step.
In the last room observing some canvases of the painter autochthonous Augusto Bastianini (Gracciano, 1875, Florence, 1938), professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence since 1910, it has the ability to go back in time to enjoy the beautiful views of the countryside around Casole, like that of the Cecina River valley that opens on the background of the shoeing del Bove, to discover at the same time that the environment is preserved intact and unspoiled in its authenticity.
museo@casole.it