THE Piccolomini family held the village of Corsignano, spectacularly placed on a long hill, in still untrammelled country between the towns of San Quirico – on the Roman Via Cassia south of Siena – and Montepulciano. Enea Silvio Piccolomini was born there in 1405; humanist, poet and diplomat, he was elected to the papacy in 1458, taking the name Pius II. Within a year his project to transform the place into a modern city, renamed in his honour, was begun under the direction of the Florentine architect Bernardo Rossellino. The project was far from finished at the pope’s death in 1464, but Pienza remains the finest fifteenth-century planned city in Italy.
The approach is from the west – the road from both Siena and Rome. The Via del Corso leads to the central piazza, with a well of 1462 by Rossellino. On the right is the façade of the cathedral, which was completed in the same year. This is flanked by the episcopal palace adapted for Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, the future Pope Alexander VI, and the Palazzo Piccolomini, built between 1459 and 1463 by Rossellino in the most up-to-date Florentine mode; opposite are the much-restored Palazzo Comunale and the palace built for the pope’s friend, Cardinal Giacomo Ammannati.
The cathedral replaced a Romanesque priory. Like so much Sienese architecture and painting of its period – 1459–62 – this is still Gothic in taste. The structure was too massive for the site and buttresses were needed to support the choir, which was built out to the very extremity of the hill. The interior is restrained, with elegant choir stalls, again of 1462, also of Gothic form. The five altarpieces were all painted in Siena between 1461 and 1463. The most remarkable is in the chapel to the left of the high altar, Vecchietta’s Assumption of the Virgin. Sculptor-cum-painter Vecchietta was an artist of deep originality, aware of, but not overawed by, the achievement of Florentine contemporaries. The other altarpieces are more conventional. One is by the consistently individual Giovanni di Paolo, another by that most predictable Sienese master of the age, Sano di Pietro, and two are relatively early works of Matteo di Giovanni, who was to influence most of the emergent Sienese artists of the next generation. Seen together in their proper setting, the five pictures offer a microcosm of Sienese painting of the period.
Bernardo Rossellino, Palazzo Piccolomini, 1459–63.
The episcopal palace now houses the Museo Diocesano. The great treasure is the fourteenth-century opus anglicanum cope presented to the Duomo by the pope and now named after him. England was famous for her medieval embroidery, and the Pienza cope, with its scenes from the lives of Saints Catherine of Alexandria and Margaret of Antioch and of the Virgin, shows why. The vigorous detail parallels that of contemporary illuminated manuscripts. Pictures include an exceptionally well-preserved Madonna by Pietro Lorenzetti and an impeccable early triptych by Sano di Pietro.
Had Pius II reigned longer more palaces would have been constructed by favoured cardinals. As it is, there is a happy contrast between the buildings at the heart of the city which he willed into existence and the more modest houses lining the main street. There are marvellous views over the surrounding country, where, alas, traditional methods of agriculture are in retreat.
Two nearby churches deserve to be seen. The unassuming Romanesque Pieve di Corsignano – with the font in which Pius II was christened – is a kilometre or so to the west. Rather further, north of the road to San Quirico, is the monastery of Sant’Anna in Camprena. Opening times are capricious, but if they can be seen, the spirited frescoes by Sodoma more than justify the detour.
Museo Diocesano: Sano di Pietro, Saint Catherine of Alexandria (detail of triptych).