The patron saints of Volterra are Saint Justus and Saint Clement, celebrated on 5 June: among the town's earliest bishops was precisely Justus, who died on 5 June 556 and later became the town's patron, to whom tradition attributes the miracle of saving the town from the siege of the Gothic king Totila in the 6th century. Both saints are honoured in the town's abbey and in a town church also known as San Giusto Nuovo.
Volterra has for centuries been a centre of international excellence in alabaster carving, an activity documented since Etruscan times that found new commercial outlets in the 18th century, supported also by Palazzo Minucci-Solaini, today home to the town's picture gallery and the Alabaster Ecomuseum. The town's Roman theatre, brought to light by archaeological excavations in the 1950s at the site of Vallebuona, dates from the late 1st century BC and its construction was funded by the wealthy Volterran Caecina family, before it was abandoned at the end of the 3rd century; not far away, a Roman amphitheatre discovered in 2015 is still under excavation. On the second and third Sundays of August the town relives its medieval past with the historical re-enactment «Volterra A.D. 1398».
