(A beautiful small mediaeval town on the way to the seaside, with one of Italy's prettiest main squares.)

Massa Marittima is divided into an upper and a lower city. The Duomo and the museum are in the lower city (città vecchia), which was the original walled town in Romanesque times, but there are also some interesting buildings in the slightly later upper Gothic city (città nuova). As its name indicates, Massa Marittima (accent on the first i) was once near the coast, overlooking an arm of the sea from its hill-top. But the silting up of the coast changed this and one now has to go another 20 km to Follonica to find the sea.

The hills that Massa stands on are called the Colli Metalliferi or the metal-bearing hills. The city has since Etruscan times been a mining centre, drawing its wealth from copper, silver, lead and iron. The town has a mining museum displaying memories of that past.

The Duomo (Cathedral)

The beautiful Duomo was built between 1228 and 1304 in the Pisan Romanesque style, with blind (i.e. filled in) arcades along its outside walls. There is some Sienese stripiness in the higher part of the building, but most of the Duomo is built of a beautiful uniform golden stone. It has a wonderfully sculpted and decorated façade, and a fine campanile with the number of windows incresing towards the top in the Lombard style.

The Duomo is dedicated to St Cerbone, the local saint. He was born in Africa in 493, but moved to Populonia, a major Etruscan town near what is now Piombino, on the coast. He became its Bishop and set about converting the Maremma (as the surrounding region is known). He was accused of heresy, however, and papal messengers came from Rome to fetch him to answer the charges against him. He treated the messengers well, feeding them doe's milk, and went with them to Rome, accompanied by a gaggle of pious geese. When he arrived before the Pope, the geese miraculously appeared at his feet as a testament of his innocence. Having successfully refuted the charges against him, he faced another trial, being thrown to the bears by King Totila of the Goths, but the bears refused to eat him. He was clearly afraid that he was not going to be so lucky a third time, as when the Lombard invaders arrived in that part of Italy, he promptly withdrew out of their way to Elba, where he died. Scenes fromhis life can be seen in the architrave above the main door of the Duomo.

Inside, the Duomo is equally attractive, basilica-shaped, with the minimum of vulgar modern intrusions. It is dotted with charming fragments of mainly 14th century frescoes, but its main delights are its sculptures and its possible Duccio.

Standing on the left of the entrance is a strange 10th or 11th century bas-relief, almost late Roman in style, with many primitive round-eyed figures. They include a row of the twelve Apostles and, at the bottom left, a representation of the Massacre of the Innocents. Round the corner by the left wall, there is a 3rd century Roman sarcophagus with winged figures in distinctly flirtatious rather than religious mode; note the two couples at either end. In the chapels on the left of the altar, there are both a fine painted wooden crucifix by the Sienese painter Sena di Bonaventura and the possible Duccio, a beautiful if rather damaged and green-faced 'Virgin of the Graces'.

Behind the altar, itself a fine piece of Baroque that fits in surprisingly well with the rest of the church, is the tomb of St Cerbone, sculpted and (unusually) signed and dated by Gori di Gregorio of Siena in 1324. It is decorated with a strip cartoon life of the saint; note especially the does being milked to assuage the thirst of the papal messengers, and the geese first going with the saint to Rome and then materialising around his feet as he confronts the Pope.

On the right of the entrance, there is a huge square font made by Girolamo da Como in 1267 with fine sculpted scenes from the Old and New Testaments; on top, an equally fine but stylistically quite different fifteenth century tabernacle has been added.

The Piazza

The triangular Piazza in which the Duomo stands is one of the most beautiful in Tuscany, and it is well worth sitting a while in one of the cafés to soak up its beauty. There is a particularly good view of the Duomo, which stands at an oblique angle to the Piazza, rather like a stage set, enabling one to see at the same time the façade and the side wall with the campanile.

To the right of the Doumo, there is the attractive 13th century Palazzo Pretorio, from which the magistrates of the city operated; many have left their crests on the front of the building (which now houses the museum). Beyond the Palazzo Pretorio, after an attractive small house, is the 14th century Palazzo Communale, or town hall, a handsome block of a building with crenellations, slightly marred by one obviously new portion.

The Museum (open 10-12.30 and 15.30-19.00; closed Mondays)

It has one marvellous painting and not much else. The painting is a Maiestà by Ambrogio di Lorenzetti, dating from around 1330, a wonderfully colourful scene of the Virgin surrounded by angels and saints - including an angel offering flowers at head level and musician angels at the bottom of the Virgin's throne. The Mother and Child are looking at each other with a close and charming intimacy, faces almost touching. An interesting feature is the way that the angels' wings make up the sides of the throne. On the steps at the base of the throne, figures are seated representing Faith, Hope and Charity, the last clearly the same lady as Justice in Lorenzetti's 'Good and Bad Government' in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena. Charity holds a wooden spindle, a sign that the painting may have been commissioned by the wealthy Wool Guild. It was intended for the Duomo, and St Cerbone and his geese are portrayed on the right. At some point the painting was removed from the Duomo, and it was lost for ages, finally found in pieces in the roof of a nearby convent in 1867.

After this, the two other rather damaged paintings in the same room are hardly worth looking at the rest of the ground floor is taken up with locally excavated prehistoric and Etruscan bits and bobs, including a strangely attractive 3rd millennium neolithic BC stele dug up by a local farmer in 1955, a flat stone with eyes and nose. In the last room on the ground floor, the 7th century BC cheese-grater in the middle case is a bit of a curiosity.

There are more Etruscan things upstairs; every tiny sherd dug up from local tombs seems to be lovingly displayed here. There are also some more recent ceramics, including a pair of rough but rare 16th century Sienese chemist's vases; others belonging to the same set are in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and in a museum in Leipzig.

The new city (città nuova)

Those who have the energy should now take the steep via Moncini, leading off from the Piazza at the far side from the Duomo, to the higher city (those who do not have the energy should not worry too much; they have seen the best of Massa).

The gateway at the top of the via Moncini is all that is left of the Fortezza dei Senese, the fortress that the Sienese built when they conquered Massa in 1355. The tower on the left as you pass through the gateway is a similar remnant of the forteress built by the previous regime in 1228, the Fortezza dei Massetani. The Sienese, when they took over, pulled most of it down, rebuilding it to only two-thirds of its original height and constructing a flying bridge across to their own fortress. In good weather, the tower (known as the Torre Candeliere or candlestick tower) is open between 11-13.00 and 17-19.00 daily except Mondays, and one can climb up (very steep steps) onto the flying bridge or higher onto the belfry on top for a good view of the surrounding countryside. Inside the tower, at the same level as the flying bridge, the works of a clock installed in 1610 can be seen, although they are now non-operational and the clock works by electricity.

Beyond the Torre Candeliere on the left is the mining museum, and further along the same street on the right there is a Gothic (mainly 13th century) church, Sant' Agostino, with a slightly later cloister alongside. Inside the church there is a single nave unusually combined with a triple apse, but otherwise little of interest.

On to the seaside

From Massa it is an easy drive to Follonica on the coast. There are beaches to the North and South of the town. those to the South, which stretch for several miles along the road towards Punta Ala, are sandy and shallow and good for children but not serious swimmers. There is a narrow band of pinewood between the road and the beach; it is usually possible to park by an entrance to the pinewood and walk through.

1999