Taras, modern Taranto, was founded by Spartan colonists in 706 BC and became the most powerful Greek city in the western Mediterranean. At its peak in the fourth century BC, under the philosopher-king Archytas (mathematician, scientist, and friend of Plato), Taras had a fleet of 300 warships, controlled the boot-heel of Italy, and produced artworks of extraordinary refinement. The goldsmiths of Taras were the finest in the ancient world. The jewelry they produced, filigree earrings, diadems, wreaths of golden oak leaves, necklaces of granulated gold, was exported across the Mediterranean and imitated but never equaled. The MARTA (Museo Nazionale Archeologico di Taranto) holds the most complete collection of this work in existence.
The MARTA is housed in the former Convent of San Domenico Maggiore in Taranto's old city, a building of the fifteenth century repurposed after Italian unification for the archaeological material that has been emerging from the Tarantine soil since systematic excavation began in the nineteenth century. The collection contains over 10,000 objects. The gold room, a single dedicated gallery displaying the jeweled contents of Tarantine aristocratic tombs, is by any measure one of the finest decorative arts galleries in Italy and one of the most technically astounding displays of ancient craft anywhere in the world.
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The MARTA Collection Highlights
The Gold Room (Sala dell'Oro)
The gold room of the MARTA is the heart of the collection and its primary claim to international significance. The pieces it contains, produced by Tarantine goldsmiths between approximately the fifth and third centuries BC, represent the peak of ancient filigree and granulation technique: processes by which gold wire (filigree) and minute gold spheres (granulation) were applied to a gold base to create decorative surfaces of extraordinary delicacy. The technology of granulation, adhering gold spheres to a gold surface without visible solder, was lost in antiquity and only rediscovered in the twentieth century after decades of metallurgical research.
Among the key pieces: the oak-leaf wreaths (stefane) placed on the heads of aristocrats in burial, leaves of hammered gold with acorns of gold wire and granulation, the naturalism of the leaf veining remarkable for its scale (individual leaves are 4-5 cm). The earrings in the form of Nike (Victory) figures riding galloping horses, produced in three-dimensional lost-wax gold casting at a scale of approximately 3 cm. And the gold diadem with a central Medusa head in polychrome enamel and filigree border, one of the most frequently reproduced objects in the museum's collections.
Greek Sculpture and Bronzes
Beyond the gold, the MARTA holds significant Greek sculpture from the Tarantine excavations, votive terracotta figurines in extraordinary quantities (the production of terracotta votives was an industry in ancient Taras), architectural terracottas from the major temples, and a collection of bronze objects from the sanctuaries and private contexts. The bronze athlete (kouros-type) from the fourth century BC is the most important sculpture in the collection. The terracotta figurine sequences, showing the development of type from Archaic to Hellenistic, are valuable for understanding the history of ancient Italian devotional practice.
Numismatic Collection
The Tarantine coin collection is among the most important in Italy for Magna Graecia numismatics. Taras produced some of the most beautiful coins of the ancient western Mediterranean, the dolphin-rider series (a figure riding a dolphin, associated with the mythological foundation story of Taras, son of Poseidon, who was saved from shipwreck by a dolphin) in silver stater format, struck with a consistency and artistic quality over two centuries of production that makes them among the most recognizable ancient coin types.
History of Ancient Taras (Taranto)
The foundation myth of Taras involves Phalanthos, a Spartan leader of the Partheniai (children of Spartan women and helot fathers born during the absence of Spartan warriors in the First Messenian War) who led his community to found a colony in the Gulf of Taranto in 706 BC on the advice of the Delphic oracle. The city's founding population thus had the mixed status of Spartan heritage without full Spartan citizenship, a condition that shaped the city's distinctive character.
Taras grew to control the richest agricultural land in southern Italy and the finest natural harbor on the Ionian coast. The philosopher Archytas (428-347 BC) was Taras's most distinguished citizen: mathematician (credited with solving the duplication of the cube problem), music theorist, mechanical inventor (the first recorded automaton, a flying wooden dove driven by compressed air), and seven-time strategos (general-magistrate) of the city. He was a close friend and correspondent of Plato, who visited Taras three times. When Archytas died at sea, Horace wrote that "not a single corpse can escape that final day", a line addressed to Archytas that implies his fame was still vivid in the first century BC.
Taras fell to Rome in 272 BC after the Pyrrhic War, was renamed Tarentum, and became a significant Roman city. The Roman period is also represented in the MARTA collection, though the Greek material is the collection's center of gravity.
Q&A: Visiting MARTA Taranto
Where is the MARTA museum?
Via Cavour 10, Taranto, in the old city (Città Vecchia) on the island between the Mare Grande and the Mare Piccolo. Open Tuesday-Sunday, 8:30am-7:30pm. Admission approximately €5. The museum is signposted in the city center. The old city is accessible on foot from the bridge connecting it to the modern city (Città Nuova).
How long does a visit to MARTA take?
The gold room and principal sculpture galleries require 90 minutes minimum. A complete visit of all galleries takes 3-4 hours. For a focused visit emphasizing the gold room and the Greek bronzes, 2 hours is appropriate.
How do I combine MARTA with other Taranto attractions?
The old city of Taranto (Città Vecchia) has the Cathedral of San Cataldo (patron saint of Taranto, eleventh century, with a Baroque interior of considerable richness), the Aragonese Castle visible from the harbor, and the famous Taranto fish market in the morning hours. Combining the MARTA visit (morning) with the old city cathedral and fish market (early morning before the museum opens) and the modern city waterfront constitutes a full day in Taranto. The Taranto region also has the archaeological sites of Heraclea (Policoro, 70 km) and the Messapian sites of the Salento interior accessible as day trips.
Is Taranto safe for tourists?
Taranto has a mixed reputation related to its industrial history (the ILVA steelworks, one of Europe's largest industrial sites, has dominated the city's recent narrative) and some economic decline in peripheral areas. The Città Vecchia and the museum area are straightforward for tourists. Standard urban precautions apply. The city's food culture is extraordinary. Taranto has one of Italy's finest fish and seafood culinary traditions, including the famous cozze tarantine (Taranto mussels, farmed in the Mar Piccolo).
What makes Tarantine gold jewelry technically unique?
The granulation technique that defines Tarantine jewelry at its peak involves adhering spheres of gold, some less than 0.1mm in diameter, to a gold surface using a bonding process that produces no visible solder. The mechanism involves copper salts that reduce to pure copper at the point of contact, creating a copper-gold eutectic bond at low temperature that then diffuses into the gold surface. The process was lost after the Roman period. Its rediscovery required twentieth-century metallurgical analysis of ancient pieces under electron microscopes. The Tarantine pieces remain the reference examples of granulation technique taken to its ultimate limit.
Taranto's Food Culture: The Other Reason to Visit
The cozze tarantine, mussels farmed in the Mar Piccolo, the enclosed lagoon behind the old city, are among the most famous shellfish in Italy. The Mar Piccolo's unique hydrological character (fed by freshwater springs called citri that emerge from the lagoon floor, mixing with seawater to create specific salinity and temperature conditions) produces mussels of exceptional flavor. They are eaten raw at the fish market with a squeeze of lemon, steamed with white wine and herbs, or in the classic Pugliese preparation of tiella (baked with rice, potatoes, and zucchini in olive oil). The Taranto fish market (Mercato del Pesce) in the old city, operating early morning until approximately noon, is one of the finest fish markets in southern Italy.
What Nobody Tells You About MARTA and Taranto
The MARTA's gold room is climatically controlled to museum standards, cool, dim, with the pieces individually illuminated. After an hour in the Tarantine August heat, entering the gold room is a physical as well as an aesthetic experience of the highest order. Plan your visit for the heat of the afternoon (2pm-5pm) when outdoor exploration is difficult anyway. The museum is the correct choice for those hours.
Taranto's Easter Week celebrations, the Processione dei Misteri, are among the most extraordinary in Italy. The processions of the Addolorata (Virgin of Sorrows) and the Misteri (mysteries of the Passion), conducted at a shuffling pace that means the full circuit takes 12-16 hours, are unique in their liturgical intensity and their popular participation. If you are in Puglia for Easter, Taranto on Good Friday is a specific experience unavailable anywhere else.
Internal Links
- Egnazia: Another Magna Graecia Site in Puglia
- MANN Naples: The Pompeii and Herculaneum Collection
- Nora Sardinia: Phoenician to Roman on the Coast
- Puglia Coast: Fishing Villages and the Taranto Seafood Tradition
- Ostuni: The White City in Puglia's Interior
- Polignano a Mare: Puglia's Cliff Town
- Reggio-Taranto Ionian Coast Train: The Scenic Southern Line
