Siena Cathedral

The Black Death Saved Siena’s Cathedral From Itself

This is the architectural irony at the heart of the Duomo di Siena. In the early 14th century, Siena decided to build the largest cathedral in the world, a nave that would dwarf what already existed. Construction started in the 1330s. Then the bubonic plague arrived in 1348, killed roughly half the city’s population, bankrupted the commune, and ended the expansion forever. The half-built extension wall – the Facciatone – still stands beside the cathedral today. You can walk along the top of it for a view across the terracotta roofline of the city, and it is one of the stranger architectural ruins available to a visitor anywhere in Italy: not a ruin from collapse, but from ambition that simply ran out of people.

Inside the Cathedral

The Duomo’s facade is zebra-striped black and white marble, aggressively ornamented, and quite unlike any other building in Tuscany. Construction stretched across several centuries from the 13th onward and the interior carries the same striped marble scheme up the columns and into the vaulted ceiling.

The marble floor is the first thing to pay attention to. Fifty-six panels depicting biblical scenes, allegories, and historical events, made by dozens of artists over two centuries of work beginning in 1373. Most of the floor is covered most of the year for protection, but sections are permanently visible, and the entire floor is uncovered annually between mid-August and late October. If you have any flexibility in your Siena dates, time the visit for this window.

The Piccolomini Library off the left nave was built to house the personal library of Pope Pius II, born in Siena in 1405. Pinturicchio’s large frescoes covering the walls depict scenes from the pope’s life in colours that have remained remarkably bright for 500 years. A carved Roman Three Graces stands in the centre of the room – a pre-Christian sculpture in a papal library, which Pius apparently found entirely appropriate. This section requires a small additional ticket and is worth it.

Nicola Pisano’s octagonal marble pulpit (1265 to 1268) is one of the masterpieces of Italian Gothic sculpture. The narrative relief panels – Nativity, Crucifixion, Last Judgement – achieve emotional expressiveness unusual for the period.

The OPA Pass

Most of the Duomo complex (cathedral, Piccolomini Library, baptistery, crypt, and the Panorama del Facciatone walk along the unfinished nave walls) is covered by a combined OPA Pass, around EUR 20 in peak season. The Facciatone view is one of the best elevated sightlines in Siena and draws far fewer visitors than the Torre del Mangia in the Piazza del Campo.

Where to Eat

Pici is the Sienese pasta – thick, hand-rolled, somewhere between spaghetti and fat noodles. It goes with wild boar ragu or simple cacio e pepe. Osteria Boccon del Prete near the cathedral is unpretentious and good. Pasticceria Bini on Via dei Termini is correct for cantucci and ricciarelli (soft almond biscuits), and the coffee is excellent.

When to Visit

Day-trippers from Florence arrive by 10am and the streets around the cathedral are congested until late afternoon. Stay overnight and you get Siena in the evenings, which is a different and better city. Pensione Palazzo Ravizza is a solid midrange option with a garden.

Avoid the two weeks around the Palio (July 2 and August 16) unless you have specifically come for it. The bare-back horse races around the Piazza del Campo are extraordinary – genuinely dangerous, chaotic, and embedded in neighbourhood rivalry going back centuries – but accommodation prices triple and the town is packed. If you want Siena’s architecture in peace, choose any other week.