Tuscany
We’ve compiled the best of the best in Tuscany - browse our top choices for the top things to see or do during your stay.
Sort by:
12 Recommendations
{{numTotalPoiResults}} {{ (numTotalPoiResults===1)?'Recommendation':'Recommendations' }}
0 Recommendations
Loading...
-
1. Cripta
CittàRoutine excavation work revealed this crypt, which had been hidden for centuries under the grand pavimento (floor) of the Duomo and was opened to the public in 2003. In the late 13th century, an unknown master executed the crypt's breathtaking frescoes, which have sustained remarkably little damage and have retained their original colors. The Deposition/Lamentation proves that the Sienese school could paint emotion just as well as the Florentine school—and that it did so some 20 years before Giotto.
Scale di San Giovanni, Siena, Tuscany, 53100, Italy0577-286300Sight Details
Rate Includes: €13 combined ticket includes the Duomo, Battistero, and Museo dell\'Opera -
2. Duomo
CittàSiena's cathedral is one of the finest Gothic churches in Italy. The multicolored marble and painted decoration are typical of the Italian approach to Gothic architecture—lighter and much less austere than the French. The amazingly detailed facade has few rivals. It was completed in two brief phases at the end of the 13th and 14th centuries. The statues and decorative work were designed by Nicola Pisano and his son Giovanni, although much of what's seen today are copies, the originals having been removed to the adjacent Museo dell'Opera Metropolitana. The gold mosaics are 18th-century restorations. The campanile (no entry) is among central Italy's finest, the number of windows increasing with each level, a beautiful and ingenious way of reducing the weight of the structure as it climbs to the heavens. With its dark-green-and-white striping throughout and its illusionistic coffered and gilded dome, the Duomo's interior is simply striking. Look up at copies of Duccio's (circa 1255–1319) stained-glass panels; the originals, finished in 1288, are in the Museo dell'Opera and are among the oldest examples of stained glass in Italy. The Duomo is most famous, though, for its inlaid-marble floors, which took almost 200 years to complete. More than 40 artists contributed to the magnificent work of 56 compositions depicting biblical scenes, allegories, religious symbols, and civic emblems. Although conserving the floors requires keeping them covered for much of the year, they are unveiled from the end of June until the end of July and from mid-August until mid-October. Also noteworthy is the Duomo's carousel pulpit, carved by Nicola Pisano around 1265; the Life of Christ is depicted on the rostrum frieze. In striking contrast to the nave's Gothic decoration are the well-preserved Renaissance frescoes in the Biblioteca Piccolomini, off the left aisle. Painted by Pinturicchio (circa 1454–1513) and completed in 1509, they depict events from the life of Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (1405–64), who became Pope Pius II in 1458. The Duomo is grand, but the medieval Sienese people had even grander plans, namely, to use the existing church as a transept and build a new nave running toward the southeast, creating what would have been the world's largest church. Alas, only the side wall and part of the new facade were completed when the Black Death struck in 1348. The city subsequently fell into decline, funds dried up, and the plans were never carried out. Indeed, the grand church project was actually doomed from the start—subsequent attempts to get it going revealed that the foundation was insufficient to bear the weight of the proposed structure. In any event, the unfinished new nave extending from the right side of the Duomo was ultimately enclosed to house the Museo dell'Opera. The Cripta was discovered during routine preservation work on the church.
Piazza del Duomo, Siena, Tuscany, 53100, Italy0577-286300Sight Details
Rate Includes: €13 combined ticket includes Cripta, Battistero, and Museo dell\'Opera -
3. Museo dell'Opera
CittàPart of the unfinished nave of what was to have been a new cathedral, the museum contains the Duomo's treasury and some of the original decoration from its facade and interior. The first room on the ground floor displays weather-beaten 13th-century sculptures by Giovanni Pisano (circa 1245–1318) that were brought inside for protection and replaced by copies, as was a tondo of the Madonna and Child (now attributed to Donatello) that once hung on the door to the south transept. The masterpiece is unquestionably Duccio's Maestà, one side with 26 panels depicting episodes from the Passion, the other side with a Madonna and Child Enthroned. Painted between 1308 and 1311 as the altarpiece for the Duomo (where it remained until 1505), its realistic elements, such as the lively depiction of the Christ child and the treatment of interior space, proved an enormous influence on later painters. The work originally decorated the Duomo's high altar before being displaced by Duccio's Maestà. There is a fine view from the tower inside the museum.
Piazza del Duomo 8, Siena, Tuscany, 53100, Italy0577-286300Sight Details
Rate Includes: €13 combined ticket includes the Duomo, Cripta, and Battistero -
4. Piazza del Campo
CittàThe fan-shaped Piazza del Campo, known simply as Il Campo (The Field), is one of the finest squares in Italy. Constructed toward the end of the 12th century on a market area unclaimed by any contrada, it's still the heart of town. Its brickwork is patterned in nine different sections—representing each member of the medieval Council of Nine. At the top of the Campo is a copy of the early 15th-century Fonte Gaia by Siena's greatest sculptor, Jacopo della Quercia. The 13 sculpted reliefs of biblical events and virtues that line the fountain are 19th-century copies; the originals are in the museum complex of Santa Maria della Scala. On Palio horse-race days (July 2 and August 16), the Campo and all its surrounding buildings are packed with cheering, frenzied locals and tourists craning their necks to take it all in.
View Tours and ActivitiesPiazza del Campo, Siena, Tuscany, 53100, Italy -
5. Santa Maria della Scala
CittàFor more than 1,000 years, this complex across from the Duomo was home to Siena's hospital, but it now serves as a museum containing, among other things, Sienese Renaissance treasures. Restored 15th-century frescoes in the Sala del Pellegrinaio (once the emergency room) tell the history of the hospital, which was created to give refuge to passing pilgrims and others in need and to distribute charity to the poor. Incorporated into the complex is the church of the Santissima Annunziata, with a celebrated Risen Christ by Vecchietta (also known as Lorenzo di Pietro, circa 1412–80). Down in the dark, Cappella di Santa Caterina della Notte is where St. Catherine went to pray at night. The displays—including the bucchero (dark, reddish clay) ceramics, Roman coins, and tomb furnishings—are clearly marked and can serve as a good introduction to the history of regional excavations. Be sure to visit the subterranean archaeological museum to see della Quercia's original sculpted reliefs from the Fonte Gaia. Although the fountain has been faithfully copied for the Campo, there's something incomparably beautiful about the real thing.
Piazza del Duomo 2, Siena, Tuscany, 53100, Italy0577-292615Sight Details
Rate Includes: €9, Closed Tues. -
Recommended Fodor’s Video
-
6. Battistero
CittàThe Duomo's 14th-century Gothic Baptistery was built to prop up the apse of the cathedral. There are frescoes throughout, but the highlight is a large bronze 15th-century baptismal font designed by Jacopo della Quercia. It's adorned with bas-reliefs by various artists, including two by Renaissance masters: the Baptism of Christ by Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378–1455) and the Feast of Herod by Donatello.
Piazza San Giovanni, Siena, Tuscany, 53100, Italy0577-286300Sight Details
Rate Includes: €13 combined ticket includes the Duomo, Cripta, and Museo dell\'Opera -
7. Casa di Santa Caterina
CamollìaCaterina Benincasa, born here in 1347, had divine visions and received the stigmata, but she is most famous for her words and her argumentative skills. Her letters—many of which are preserved in the Biblioteca Comunale—were dictated because she did not know how to write. She is credited with convincing Pope Gregory XI (1329–78) to return the papacy to Rome after 70 years in Avignon and French domination, ending the Western Schism. Caterina died in Rome in 1380 and was canonized in 1461. In subsequent centuries, the rooms of the house, including her cell and the kitchen, were converted into a series of chapels and oratories and decorated by noteworthy artists with scenes from Caterina's life. In 1939, she was made a patron saint of Italy, along with St. Francis of Assisi. In 1970, she was elevated to Doctor of the Church, the highest possible honor in Christendom. She has been named a patron saint of Europe but, strangely enough, never of her hometown.
Costa di Sant'Antonio 6, Siena, Tuscany, 53100, Italy0577-288175Sight Details
Rate Includes: Free -
8. Orto Botanico
CittàSiena's botanical garden is a great place to relax and enjoy views onto the countryside below. Guided tours in English are available by reservation.
Via Pier Andrea Mattioli 4, Siena, Tuscany, 53100, Italy0577-235407Sight Details
Rate Includes: €5 -
9. Palazzo Pubblico
CittàThe Gothic Palazzo Pubblico, the focal point of the Piazza del Campo, has served as Siena's town hall since the 1300s. It now also contains the Museo Civico, with walls covered in early Renaissance frescoes. The nine governors of Siena once met in the Sala della Pace, famous for Ambrogio Lorenzetti's frescoes called Allegories of Good and Bad Government, painted in the late 1330s to demonstrate the dangers of tyranny. The good government side depicts utopia, showing first the virtuous ruling council surrounded by angels and then scenes of a perfectly running city and countryside. Conversely, the bad government fresco tells a tale straight out of Dante. The evil ruler and his advisers have horns and fondle strange animals, and the town scene depicts the seven mortal sins in action. The Torre del Mangia, the palazzo's famous bell tower, is named after one of its first bell ringers, Giovanni di Duccio (called Mangiaguadagni, or earnings eater). The climb up to the top is long and steep, but the view makes it worth every step.
View Tours and ActivitiesPiazza del Campo 1, Siena, Tuscany, 53100, Italy0577-292232Sight Details
Rate Includes: Museum €6, tower €10, museum and tower €15 -
10. Pinacoteca Nazionale
CittàThe superb collection of five centuries of local painting in Siena's national picture gallery can easily convince you that the Renaissance was by no means just a Florentine thing. Accordingly, the most interesting section of the collection, chronologically arranged, has several important firsts. Room 1 contains a painting of the Stories of the True Cross (1215) by the so-called Master of Tressa, the earliest identified work by a painter of the Sienese school, and is followed in Room 2 by late-13th-century artist Guido da Siena's Stories from the Life of Christ, one of the first paintings ever made on canvas (earlier painters used wood panels). Rooms 3 and 4 are dedicated to Duccio, a student of Cimabue (circa 1240–1302) and considered to be the last of the proto-Renaissance painters. Ambrogio Lorenzetti's landscapes in Room 8 are among the first truly secular paintings in Western art. Among later works in the rooms on the floor above, keep an eye out for the preparatory sketches used by Domenico Beccafumi (1486–1551) for the 35 etched marble panels he made for the floor of the Duomo.
Via San Pietro 29, Siena, Tuscany, 53100, Italy0577-281161Sight Details
Rate Includes: €6 -
11. San Domenico
CamollìaAlthough the Duomo is celebrated as a triumph of 13th-century Gothic architecture, this church, built at about the same time, turned out to be an oversize, hulking brick box that never merited a finishing coat in marble, let alone a graceful facade. Named for the founder of the Dominican order, the church is now more closely associated with St. Catherine of Siena. Just to the right of the entrance is the chapel in which she received the stigmata. On the wall is the only known contemporary portrait of the saint, made in the late 14th century by Andrea Vanni (circa 1332–1414). Farther down is the famous Cappella delle Santa Testa, the church's official shrine. On either side of the chapel are well-known frescoes by Sodoma (aka Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, 1477–1549) of St. Catherine in Ecstasy. Don't miss the view of the Duomo and town center from the apse-side terrace.
-
12. Sinagoga
San MartinoDown a small street around the corner from Il Campo, this synagogue is worth a visit simply to view the two sobering plaques that adorn its facade. One commemorates June 28, 1799, when 13 Jews were taken from their homes by a fanatic mob and burned in the square. The other memorializes the Sienese Jews who were deported during World War II. Visits are permitted every half hour, and guided tours in English are available by prior arrangement.
Vicolo delle Scotte 14, Siena, Tuscany, 53100, Italy0577-271345Sight Details
Rate Includes: €4, Closed Sat.
-
{{ (numCurrentPage-1)*numPageLimit+index+1 }}.
{{ item.neighborhood }} | {{ item.first_keyword }}{{ item.review }}
{{ item.address }}{{ item.phone[0] }}{{ item.details.title }} Details
{{ item.details.content.toString() }}View Tours and Activities -
Recommended Fodor’s Video
No sights Results
Please try a broader search, or expore these popular suggestions:
There are no results for {{ strDestName }} Sights in the searched map area with the above filters. Please try a different area on the map, or broaden your search with these popular suggestions:
