Pienza: the ideal Renaissance city in the Val d'Orcia

In 1459, a pope with very precise ideas about what constituted a beautiful city decided to transform his birthplace into an ideal Renaissance city. The pope was Pius II, the village was called Corsignano, and the city is still called Pienza today, named after the pope.

In just three years, the architect Rossellino transformed a medieval village into the most harmonious Renaissance city in Italy. The view from the loggia of Palazzo Piccolomini over the Val d’Orcia is exactly what Pope Pius II wanted to be able to see from his palace.

Pienza and Pope Pius II: the story of an invented city

Enea Silvio Piccolomini - this was the secular name of Pope Pius II - was born in Corsignano in 1405 to a noble Sienese family. Having become pope in 1458, he had precise ideas about town planning and architecture. He commissioned the architect Bernardo Rossellino to transform his birthplace into a model city.

Rossellino worked rapidly: in just three years (1459-1462) he realised the central square, the Duomo, the Palazzo Piccolomini and the Palazzo Vescovile. It was one of the most rapid and coherent urban interventions of the Italian Renaissance.

The new city was renamed Pienza in honour of its patron. Pope Pius II died in 1464, before seeing his project fully completed, but the nucleus that Rossellino had built was already perfect.

Piazza Pio II: the most beautiful Renaissance square in Italy

Piazza Pio II is considered by many architectural historians to be the most beautiful Renaissance square in Italy. Not the largest - it is relatively small - but the most harmonious.

The four buildings surrounding it - the Duomo, the Palazzo Piccolomini, the Palazzo Vescovile and the Palazzo Comunale - were designed as a coordinated ensemble, with proportions, materials and styles that respond to one another. The Duomo has a travertine façade; the Palazzo Piccolomini next to it has the same biforate windows, the same materials, the same scale.

In the centre of the square stands a medieval well that Rossellino preserved - almost as a reminder that the city had not been born from nothing.

The Duomo of Pienza: the light that enters

The Duomo of Pienza, Cattedrale dell’Assunta, has a particular feature that Pius II explicitly required of the designer: it is a building that lets in light. The large Gothic windows at the far end create an interior that is extraordinarily luminous - almost dazzling compared to the norm of medieval churches.

Pope Pius II wanted a “glass cathedral”, like the Gothic cathedrals he had visited during his diplomatic missions in Germany. Rossellino created something intermediate: a Renaissance façade on the outside, a Gothic-Germanic interior on the inside, with large stained-glass windows.

The effect is striking: you enter from a square in full light and find an interior equally luminous.

The Palazzo Piccolomini and the hanging garden

The Palazzo Piccolomini is the papal residence designed by Rossellino, inspired in its structure by Alberti’s Palazzo Rucellai in Florence. It is a palace of balanced proportions, with three orders of biforate windows succeeding one another regularly.

The most surprising thing about the Palazzo Piccolomini is the hanging garden at the rear: a terrace garden overlooking the Val d’Orcia directly. Pius II wanted to be able to sit in his garden and look at the landscape he had loved as a child. The panorama from the palazzo loggia - the rolling hills of the Val d’Orcia, the cypresses, the distant crete - is one of the finest in Tuscany.

The palace is visitable by appointment, with guided tours that include the furnished rooms.

The Pecorino di Pienza: the Val d’Orcia’s most famous DOP

Pienza is also world-famous for its Pecorino. The Pecorino di Pienza DOP is produced from whole cinta senese sheep’s milk, processed according to traditional methods with different stages of ageing.

The main varieties are:

• Fresh: soft, milky, to be eaten in the first days after production
• Semi-aged: 20-60 days, more flavourful, with the rind starting to form
• Aged: over 60 days, dry, piquant, excellent with honey or Chianti Classico
• Under ash (sotto cenere): aged in oak ash, with particular aromas

The Pecorino shops line the main street of Pienza. Prices are reasonable for the quality. Tasting in the shop is normal and expected.

How to get there from Poggibonsi

From Poggibonsi, Pienza is about 75 kilometres. The most comfortable route:

• SS2 Via Cassia heading south as far as San Quirico d’Orcia
• From San Quirico, follow signs for Pienza (12 km)

The journey takes about 1 hour and 10 minutes. Parking is outside the walls, paid in high season.

Val d’Orcia UNESCO heritage: what it means in practice

The Val d’Orcia was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2004 as a “cultural landscape”. The reasoning is unusual: it is not a single monument or city, but an agricultural landscape that has remained almost unchanged since the Renaissance period.

In practice, this means the territory is subject to landscape constraints that limit modern construction, preserving the views of cypresses, white gravel roads and cultivated hillsides. It is also a guarantee for the visitor: what you see today is what you will see in twenty years.