SIENA’S DUOMO
Siena’s hulking Duomo is a treasure house of late Gothic sculpture, early Renaissance painting and Baroque design. Early architects dressed the edifice in striking Romanesque stripes, but its form is firmly Gothic, one of the best examples of the style in Italy. Equally fascinating are the Duomo’s outbuildings: the Baptistry, the Museo dell’Opera Metropolitana and the Santa Maria della Scala hospital across the square, where 1440s frescoes in the wards depict medieval hospital scenes.
NEED TO KNOW
Piazza del Duomo 8 • 0577 283 048 • www.operaduomo.siena.it
Duomo, library, crypt, museum, baptistry: 10:30am–6pm daily (Nov–Feb: until 5:30pm); late Dec–early Jan: 10am–6pm daily
Santa Maria della Scala: 10:30am–6:30pm daily
Adm €5 for Duomo and library combined, €8 when floor is uncovered (18 Aug–27 Oct), €8–13 Duomo, library, museum, crypt, baptistry combined (€20 with roof access)
- A nearby bakery, Bini, has been making traditional Sienese pastries since 1943.
- Preparatory drawings are on display at the Pinacoteca.
- Check the Duomo website or call 0577 286 300 for information regarding ticket details.
1 Pisano Pulpit
Nicola Pisano’s son, Giovanni, and his pupil Arnolfo di Cambio helped create this masterpiece of Gothic carving. Similar to Pisano pulpits in Pistoia and Pisa, it depicts scenes from the Life of Christ.
2 Façade
Giovanni Pisano designed the façade in 1285. His original time-worn statues (replaced now with copies) are in the Museo dell’Opera Metropolitana. The mosaics on the top half are by 19th-century Venetian craftsmen.
Façade
3 Piccolomini Altar
Andrea Bregno’s 1480 marble altar incorporates a Madonna and Child (1397–1400) by Jacopo della Quercia and four small statues of saints (1501–4) by the young Michelangelo.
4 San Giovanni Chapel
Giovanni di Stefano’s Renaissance baptismal chapel (1492) is decorated with Pinturicchio frescoes and a bronze St John the Baptist (1457) by an ageing Donatello.
5 Floor Panels
All 59 panels are on show in early autumn (usually mid-August to October), but some are visible all year. Between 1372 and 1547, these exquisite marble mosaics were created by Siena’s top artists, including Pinturicchio and Matteo di Giovanni, whose Massacre of the Innocents is masterful.
Marble mosaic floor panels
6 Duccio’s Stained-Glass Window
Italy’s earliest stained glass (1288) decorates the round window in the apse. Designed by Siena’s great early Gothic master Duccio di Boninsegna, it underwent a thorough cleaning in the 1990s. The original has now been placed in the cathedral museum, the Museo dell’Opera Metropolitana.
7 Chigi Chapel
Baroque master Gian Lorenzo Bernini designed this chapel in 1659. The 13th-century Madonna del Voto altar-piece is Siena’s guardian angel: officials have placed the city keys before her in times of crisis, including during Nazi occupation, and Siena has always been delivered from harm.
8 Piccolomini Library
The library was built to house manuscripts that belonged to the humanist Pope Pius II, born to Siena’s Piccolomini family. His life is celebrated in masterly frescoes by Pinturicchio that date from 1502 to 1507.
Piccolomini Library
9 Choir
The intarsia wood choir stalls were made by various master craftsmen (1362–1570), the 1532 marble altar by Baldassarre Peruzzi, the angel candelabra (c.1488) by Francesco di Giorgio Martini and the apse Ascension fresco by Beccafumi from 1548 to 1551.
10 Campanile
The tower was added in 1313, but, with its dramatic black-and-white stripes, the design is Romanesque.
Campanile
DUOMO HISTORY
The Duomo was largely built between 1215 and 1263 by, among others, Nicola Pisano. His son Giovanni designed the façade. In 1339, work began on a huge new nave. The idea was to turn the Duomo we see today into merely the transept of the largest church in Christendom. This plan was thwarted by the Black Death in 1348, and the would-be façade is now a terrace, while the unfinished nave wall now houses the cathedral museum.
