What is Buonconvento known for?

Emperor Henry VII of Luxembourg died in Buonconvento on 24 August 1313 on his march to Rome, a death long blamed on Ghibelline poisoning. Late fourteenth-century walls built by Siena in 1379, with hanging arches and a rectangular plan that still defines the centro storico. Main town of the clay-blue hills south of Siena, the bare lunar landscape that gives the area its name from the chiare crete.

Where is Buonconvento?

Buonconvento is a comune in the province of Siena, Tuscany region of Italy, about 102 kilometers from Perugia.

Tuscany · Siena

Buonconvento

The walled brick borgo in the Crete Senesi where Emperor Henry VII died in 1313, on the Via Cassia at the confluence of the Arbia and Ombrone.

102 km / 63 mi

Nearest hub (Perugia)

2,979

Population

Apr–Oct

Best time to visit

Recognised as

Why come

Buonconvento sits on the plain of the Via Cassia, where the Arbia meets the Ombrone, twenty-five kilometers south of Siena and the main town of the Crete Senesi. The name comes from bonus conventus, happy meeting place, recorded for the first time in 1100. In August 1313 Emperor Henry VII of Luxembourg died here on his way to Rome, a death the Ghibellines blamed on poisoning. The Sienese walled the borgo in 1379: brick curtain walls with hanging arches, two gates called Porta Senese and Porta Romana. Porta Romana was destroyed in 1944 by the retreating Germans, the same year the Allies came up the Via Cassia. The Palazzo Pretorio, fourteenth century, has twenty-five podestà coats of arms on its façade and a tower that echoes Siena's Torre del Mangia. The Museo d'Arte Sacra della Val d'Arbia holds a Madonna by Duccio di Buoninsegna from the 1290s.

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Gallery

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Known for

Palazzo Pretorio
Fourteenth-century brick palace with twenty-five podestà coats of arms on its façade and a slender tower modeled on Siena's Torre del Mangia.
Mura di Buonconvento
Brick curtain walls with hanging arches built by Siena in 1379, with Porta Senese to the north (Porta Romana lost in 1944).
Museo d'Arte Sacra della Val d'Arbia
Sacred art collection in Palazzo Ricci Socini covering the Sienese school from the 13th to 19th centuries, including a Duccio Madonna.
Museo della Mezzadria Senese
Sharecropping museum documenting the rural Sienese economy that ended in the mid-twentieth century, with farming tools and oral histories.
Chiesa dei Santi Pietro e Paolo
Parish church reworked in the early twentieth century in neo-Gothic style, on the main street inside the walls.

When to visit

Best months · Apr–Oct

Best
Hot or crowded
Quiet
Mostly closed

April through June paints the Crete green and the spring wheat is at full height by May. September and October are the Crete at their most photographed: bare hills back in clay color, low sun, long shadows. July and August touch the high thirties in the plain; the walls hold heat into the night. November through March is quiet, the white roads back to mud, many agriturismi closed. The Tiratura della Madonna del Soccorso runs in early October, when the icon is carried through the village in procession. Truffle season in the Val d'Arbia woods runs September through December and shows on the restaurant menus.