Levels I and II

The head was found accidentally in 1930 in Siena, on via Mascagni, during the construction of the Hygiene laboratory. The portrait depicts an elderly man with an emaciated face, lined with deep wrinkles and covered by a light beard; his hair is arranged in disordered tufts starting from the vortex at the nape. The type is known in the Roman world from a significant number of replicas. The incorrect identification with Seneca, categorically refuted by the nineteenth-century discovery of an inscribed portrait of the philosopher, is attributed to Fulvio Orsini in the Imagines et elogia virorum illustrium (1578). Since the nineteenth century, there have been numerous proposals for identification, mostly directed towards the most important Greek poets such as Museo, Tespi, Archilochus, Euripides, Theocritus, Homer, Aristophanes, Aesop. The emaciated and neglected appearance of the type has led, even recently, to the suggestion of the quintessential peasant poet, Hesiod. While the identity of the figure remains uncertain, the original from which the series of Roman copies is derived seems more defined, likely being a portrait created in the late 2nd century BC. The Sienese copy can be dated to the 1st century AD.

The urn, belonging to the family tomb of the Sentinate Cumere, shows the deceased semi-reclining on the kline. On the coffin is a representation of the recognition between the two brothers, the sons of Agamemnon, Iphigenia, and Orestes in Tauris.

The urn, belonging to the tomb of the Sentinate Cumere, features a recumbent male figure on its lid. The scene depicted on the chest has been interpreted in various ways: the traditional interpretation of two warriors supported by companions as a representation of the dying Eteocles and Polynices has been questioned due to the presence of the lightning bolt.

The amphora, reddish-brown in color ('red bucchero'), comes from a tomb discovered in the locality of Querce al Pino, Chiusi. The body of the vase is decorated with a stamped band featuring sphinxes facing left, while the shoulder is adorned with seed pod shapes with hanging drops. On the rim, aligned with the handles, are plastic female heads. The tomb's grave goods also included another similar amphora and two hydrias.

On the facade of Santa Maria della Scala are embedded four ancient inscriptions that tell a significant part of the centuries-old Sienese institution's history. The first one is located at the entrance of via dei Fusari, above an arch, now bricked up, on the ground floor of the Rector's Palace, the institutional figure that has guided the entity since its origins.