Archaeological Museum Mecenate

Arezzo has made a small park out of the remains of its Roman amphitheater (entered from Via Crispi). Atop one of the amphitheater's curves, a 15th-century convent with a double loggia has been converted into an archaeological museum housing remains from Etruscan and Roman Arretium. After some 6th-century-B.C. bronzes and a red-figure amphora from the 5th century B.C., rooms 6 to 8 contain the museum's pride, a collection of the mass-produced corallino pottery that made Roman Arezzo famous from 50 B.C. to A.D. 70. These waxy brick-red ceramics were decorated with stamped reliefs and depressions, and the tools and styles of various production studios are didactically laid out. Room 8 contains the remnants of the famed Ateius workshop, which at its height had branch ateliers in Pisa and Lyons. Upstairs are some relics from the Chiusi area, including an unusually anthropomorphic 7th-century-B.C. urn with human arms and a lid shaped like a human head. Don't miss the highly refined tiny portrait of a toga-wearing man incised on gold and silver leaf and protected by a glass disk. This remarkably realistic artistry dates from the early 3rd century A.D.