Siena

SIENA, THE CITY OF THE PALIO

((60 km 1h) Siena is one of the most beautiful cities of Tuscany. The main sights are: Siena Cathedral, Piazza del Campo, Palazzo Pubblico and the Torre del Mangia. Every year on 2nd July and 16th August in Piazza del Campo takes place the famous horse race the "Palio". Siena has been declared an UNESCO site. My suggestion is to park your car at "San Francesco" car parking, from there escalators bring you in the city centre.

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Siena (IPA: [sjɛ ː na]) is an Italian town of 54,646 inhabitants, capital of the province in Tuscany.
The city is known worldwide for its enormous historic, artistic, landscape and for its substantial stylistic unity of the urban medieval, as well as for the famous Palio di Siena.
For these merits, in 1995 its historic center has been awarded by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
In the city the seat of the Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, founded in 1472 and therefore the oldest bank in business as well as the oldest in the world.
Geography

Siena is located in central Tuscany in the middle of a vast landscape of hills between the valleys of the rivers Arbia south, south-west Merse and Elsa in the north, between the Chianti hills to the north-east, to the west and the Hillock Crete Senesi to the south-east.

History

Main article: History of the Republic of Siena and Siena.

Mullioned windows of the Town Hall during the days of the Palio, the top districts that do not participate, down those involved in the race.
Siena was founded as a Roman colony in the time of Emperor Augustus and took the name of Saena Iulia.
Inside the historical center of Siena were found sites of Etruscan, which may suggest the founding of the city by the Etruscans.
The first known document in which it is mentioned the Siena community dates back to the 70 and bears the signature of Tacitus, in the fourth book of the Historiae, reports the following incident: Senator Manlio Patruito reported to Rome that he was mistreated and ridiculed with a mock funeral during his official visit to Saena Iulia, a small military colony of Tuscia. The Roman Senate decided to punish the main perpetrators and strictly recall the Sienese to a greater respect for authority.
The High Middle Ages did not have documents that can illuminate around the cases of civilian life in Siena. Is there any news on the establishment of the diocese, and the diocese, especially for the dispute between the Bishop of Siena and Arezzo, because the boundaries of jurisdictional area: matters in which the Lombard king Liutprand intervened, pronouncing judgment in favor of the diocese of Arezzo. But the Sienese were not satisfied and so in 853, when Italy went from Lombard domination to that of the Franks, succeeded in obtaining the annulment of the judgment of Liutprando. So, it seems that at the time of the Lombards, Siena was governed by a steward, a king's representative Gastaldo who was later replaced by an imperial count after the coronation of Charlemagne. The first count of which we have concrete news was Winigi, the son of Rainier, in 867. After 900 reigned in Siena Emperor Louis III, whose reign did not last so long, since in 903 the chronicles tell of a return to power of the accounts under the new government of King Berengar.

The historic center of Siena
Siena is in the tenth century at the center of important trade routes that led to Rome and, thanks to what became an important medieval city. In the twelfth century the city was equipped with communal and consular begins to expand its territory and makes its first alliances. This situation of both political and economic, led Siena to fight for the northern Tuscany, with Florence. From the first half of the twelfth century Siena prospered and became an important commercial center, keeping a good relationship with the state of the Church, the Sienese bankers were a reference to the authority of Rome, which turned to them for loans or financing .
At the end of the twelfth century Siena, supporting the Ghibelline cause (even if there were, the Sienese families of Guelph, in tune with Florence), found itself against the Guelphs of Florence: it is the famous victory over the Tuscan Guelphs in the Battle of Montaperti , in 1260, celebrated by Dante Alighieri. But after a few years, the Sienese were defeated at the Battle of Colle Val d'Elsa, in 1269, which led later, in 1287, the rise of the Government of the Nine, part of Guelph. Under this new government, Siena reached its maximum splendor, both economically and culturally.
After the plague of 1348, he began the slow decline of the Republic of Siena, which, however, did not preclude the road to the territorial expansion of Siena, that until the day of the fall of the Republic featured a third of Tuscany. The end of the Sienese Republic, perhaps the only western state to implement a pure democracy for the people, took place April 25, 1555, when the city, after a siege of more than a year, had to surrender exhausted by hunger, the empire of Charles V, backed by the Florentines, who gave it in fief the territory of the Republic to the Medici family, lords of Florence, to repay the costs incurred during the war. For the umpteenth time the citizens of Siena was able to stand up to an emperor, that only thanks to their enormous resources could bend the fierce resistance of this small republic and its citizens.
After the fall of the Republic of Siena few, however, led by the exiled Florentine Strozzi, not wanting to accept the fall of the Republic, took refuge in Montalcino, creating the Republic of Siena in Montalcino repaired, maintaining the alliance with France, which continued to exercise their power over the southern part of the territory of the Republic, creating significant challenges to the troops of Florence. She lived until 31 May 1559 when he was betrayed by the French allies, who had always supported Siena, concluding that the peace of Cateau-Cambrésis with the Emperor Charles V, in fact ceded to the Republic of Florence.

Monuments and places of interest

religious Architecture
For more, see the churches of Siena.
Siena Cathedral
Baptistery of San Giovanni
Church of the Santissima Annunziata in Piazza del Duomo

The Majesty of Duccio (1308-11) Tempera on wood, 214 x 412 cm Museo dell'Opera Metropolitana del Duomo, Siena
Observance Basilica dedicated to San Bernardino
Basilica of Santa Maria dei Servi
Church of San Domenico
Church of St. Francis
Church of the Holy Spirit
Oratory of San Bernardino
Sanctuary and home of St. Catherine
synagogue
 
palaces

Facade of the cathedral
Birthplace of John Dupré
Former Psychiatric Hospital of St. Nicholas
Archbishop's Palace
Palace Bargagli
Palazzo Galletti Bambagini
Bianchi Bandinelli Palace
Palace Bisdomini
Palazzo Bichi Ruspoli, already Castellare dei Rossi
Palace Bonsignore
Palazzo Celsi Pollini or Bishop's Palace
Captain's Palace, home of the Institute of Mathematics of the University
Palazzo Chigi
Cinughi Palazzo de 'Pazzi
Town Hall (Palazzo Pubblico)
Palace of the Devils
Palazzo Fineschi Sergardi
Palace Pannilini Zuccantini
Palazzo Piccolomini
Palazzo Salimbeni, home of Banca Monte dei Paschi
Palazzo San Galgano
Sansedoni Palace, headquarters of the Fondazione Banca Monte dei Paschi
Palace Sozzini Malavolti
Palazzo Spannocchi
Administration center in the Monte dei Paschi
Palazzo Tantucci
Palazzo Tolomei
Palace of the Magnificent
Palazzo Maccari
Palace of the Bank of Italy
Palace of Wisdom
Palazzo Patrizi
Palazzo Venturi Gallerani

monuments
Piazza del Campo
Town Hall
Torre del Mangia
Chapel Square
Fonte Gaia
Lodges of the Pope