Pienza

Pienza: The Pope’s Utopian City and Italy’s Best Pecorino

In 1459, Pope Pius II hired the Florentine architect Bernardo Rossellino to rebuild his birthplace as a model Renaissance city. Rossellino had three years and, effectively, unlimited budget. The result is Piazza Pio II: a single coherent piece of Renaissance urban planning where the Duomo, Palazzo Piccolomini, Palazzo Vescovile, and the communal palace were all constructed simultaneously to relate to each other. Most Italian piazzas were assembled over centuries from buildings that happen to share a square. This one was designed as a composition. You can see the difference immediately.

UNESCO listed the town in 1996. The permanent population is around 2,000 and there are a very large number of tour buses between May and October.

What to See

Palazzo Piccolomini is now a museum. The rooms retain period furniture, tapestries, and papal vestments. The hanging garden at the back, which Pius designed to look out over the Val d’Orcia toward the distant mountains, is the detail most worth finding. Standing in a 15th-century papal garden looking at the same landscape the pope looked at is one of those small time-compression experiences that Tuscany specialises in.

The Duomo has a Gothic interior in a Romanesque exterior – a combination that created structural problems almost immediately. The facade is already showing stress after 560 years. Inside, five altarpieces commissioned from Sienese masters for the original completion are the main artistic content.

The Pecorino

Pienza has a genuine and defensible claim to making the best pecorino in Tuscany. Pecorino di Pienza DOP comes in fresh form (fresco, 2 to 3 weeks aged), semi-aged (about 3 months), and fully aged stagionato (6 months or more). The stagionato aged in walnut leaves is the most interesting style: the tannins from the leaves add a specific flavour note the other versions don’t have. Buon Umore and La Bottega del Naturista on Corso il Rossellino both sell good ranges. Taste before buying; individual wheels vary.

Eating

Latte di Luna on Via San Carlo is the restaurant worth booking ahead. Traditional Sienese cooking; the pici (thick hand-rolled pasta) with wild boar ragù is the right choice, the wine list pulls from local Val d’Orcia producers at reasonable markups.

The Val d’Orcia

The landscape around Pienza – cypress-lined ridge roads, wheat fields, rolling clay hills – has been photographed so comprehensively that it can feel like visiting a photograph. It is still beautiful. Drive or cycle in May (green hills, poppies) or late August (golden fields) for the best light. Montalcino, 25 kilometres west, produces Brunello di Montalcino; the Fortezza at its summit has a wine bar pouring local producers by the glass. Montepulciano, 14 kilometres east, produces Vino Nobile and is dramatically positioned on a steep hill.

Staying

Agriturismo La Bandita, 5 kilometres outside town in a converted farmhouse with views across the valley, runs from around EUR 250 per night in season. Hotel Il Chiostro di Pienza occupies a 15th-century convent in the centre at around EUR 150 to 200. Day-tripping from Siena (50 kilometres) or Montepulciano works if you want to keep moving.