Massa Marittima in April
We are staying in Piombino for a week in April and arrived on Sunday. The weather is still poor on Tuesday morning although the forecast says it should improve. We drive to Massa Marittima which we have visited before but rather in haste. We remember the town enough to park easily just across the road from our first destination. It's not raining but it's cloudy and chilly and a museum is the ideal solution before lunch. This museum San Pietro all'Orto is quite small but well worth the five euros (four for Andrea who is over 65) entry fee. The first room contains stone sculptures dating back to 12th/13th centuries. The panels, mostly from the cathedral of San Cerbone, are bas-reliefs in grey alabaster, or more properly darkened anhydrite which depict various characters and situations: the twelve apostles, arranged on three panels,although only St. Peter is easily recognizable with his keys, and the massacre of the innocents, on two panels with underlying rosettes. Two othe...
