What is Siena known for?

Bareback horse race in Piazza del Campo on 2 July and 16 August, ten of the seventeen contrade competing, run since at least the seventeenth century. Marble cathedral in black and white bands begun 1226, with sculptures by Donatello, Pisano and Michelangelo and Pinturicchio's Piccolomini Library frescoes. Historic centre inscribed by UNESCO in 1995, a preserved medieval city built around the merchant republic that rivaled Florence until 1555.

Siena is a comune in the province of Siena, Tuscany region of Italy, about 78 kilometers from Firenze.

Tuscany · Siena

Siena

The medieval rival of Florenceon three hills, with a shell-shaped piazza where seventeen contrade race bareback horses twice a year.

78 km / 48 mi

Nearest hub (Firenze)

52,812

Population

Apr–Oct

Best time to visit

Recognised as

Why come

Siena sitson three hills fifty kilometers south of Florence, with which it fought a defining rivalry through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The historic center has been UNESCO World Heritage since 1995, preserved as a medieval city that worked deliberately to differ from Florentine urban planning. Piazza del Campo, the shell-shaped square at the meeting point of the three original hills, fans out toward the Palazzo Pubblico, whose construction began in 1297. The Torre del Mangia next to it, built between 1338 and 1348, stands 87 meters tall, the exact height of the Duomo, a deliberate equality between church and state. The Duomo itself, marble-clad in horizontal black and white bands, holds the inlaid mosaic floor that Vasari called the most beautiful ever made, and sculptures by Donatello, the Pisano family and Michelangelo. The Palio runs twice a year, on 2 July and 16 August: bareback riders representing seventeen contrade circle the Campo three times in roughly ninety seconds.

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Gallery

9 photos · scroll →

Known for

Piazza del Campo
Shell-shaped medieval square at the meeting point of Siena's three hills, paved in 1349 in red brick divided into nine sectors for the Council of Nine.
Palazzo Pubblico
Town hall begun in 1297, with the Sala dei Nove holding Lorenzetti's Allegory of Good and Bad Government from 1338-1339.
Torre del Mangia
Brick tower built 1338-1348 next to the Palazzo Pubblico, 87 meters tall, set deliberately to match the height of the Duomo.
Duomo di Siena
Marble-clad cathedral in black and white bands, with inlaid mosaic floor, Piccolomini Library frescoes and sculptures by Donatello, Pisano and Michelangelo.
Santa Maria della Scala
Former hospital opposite the Duomo, founded in the ninth century to care for pilgrims on the Via Francigena, now a museum complex of frescoed halls.
Pinacoteca Nazionale
Gallery in the fifteenth-century Palazzo Buonsignori, holding the major works of the Sienese school from Duccio to Sodoma.
Contrade
Seventeen historic neighborhoods of the centro storico, each with its own church, museum and identity, structuring the city year-round and the Palio in July and August.

When to visit

Best months · Apr–Oct

Best
Hot or crowded
Quiet
Mostly closed

April through June and September into October are the dry months in central Tuscany: mild days, full openings at the museums, the Campo busy but not packed. The Palio runs on 2 July and 16 August: the city stops for the four days around each race, the trial races fill the piazza twice a day, and accommodation books out a year ahead. July and August are otherwise hot and crowded with day-trippers from Florence. November through March is quiet. The contrade go about their internal life, the museums stay open, and Piazza del Campo on a cold morning with no one in it is the Siena that pre-existed the photograph everyone takes.