Description
The Basilica dell'Osservanza, or Basilica of San Bernardino, stands on the Capriola hill, outside the center of Siena, where Saint Bernardino lived. It is the most important of the churches outside the city: a Renaissance brick building, dominated by a dome and a bell tower.
Outside the facing is all brick, with a gabled facade, a circular rose window and a porch in front of the single portal. Inside, the church has sober Renaissance forms: white walls and pietra serena decoration.
The best works are the glazed terracottas by Andrea della Robbia: two tondi on the inside of the facade with Saint Louis of Toulouse and Saint Bonaventure, the figures of the Angel of the Annunciation and the Virgin Annunciate at the base of the chancel arch and an Assumption of Mary in a chapel on the left.
Then the triptychs by Sano di Pietro: the Madonna and Child with Saints Jerome and Bernardino, and the Coronation of the Virgin (1450-1460). A polyptych by Andrea di Bartolo (1413) completes the fourth chapel on the left.
Under the church is the crypt with the Petrucci burial place, where Pandolfo rests. In the convent opens Pandolfo's loggia and, in the refectory, a Last Supper by Francesco Franci (1710); in the Castelli museum is kept the reliquary of Saint Bernardino, from the mid-15th century.
On January 23, 1944 American bombs reduced the basilica almost to rubble. Today, though, it looks intact, because after the war the architect Egisto Bellini rebuilt it as it was, thanks to photographs and the friars' testimony. It was reconsecrated in 1949.
It was not the first time it had risen again: the siege of Siena in 1554 had already damaged it. After the Baroque reconstruction, it had a heavy restoration between 1922 and 1932, and in 1924 it was raised to minor basilica.
The convent was founded in 1403 by Blessed Giovanni da Stroncone. The construction of the church is traced back to 1476, and the work ended in the 1490s: the design was probably by Francesco di Giorgio Martini, with the collaboration of Giacomo Cozzarelli.
Pandolfo Petrucci enlarged the convent after 1495, and later, after 1505, so did Fra Timoteo de' Medici.
Outside the facing is all brick, with a gabled facade, a circular rose window and a porch in front of the single portal. Inside, the church has sober Renaissance forms: white walls and pietra serena decoration.
The best works are the glazed terracottas by Andrea della Robbia: two tondi on the inside of the facade with Saint Louis of Toulouse and Saint Bonaventure, the figures of the Angel of the Annunciation and the Virgin Annunciate at the base of the chancel arch and an Assumption of Mary in a chapel on the left.
Then the triptychs by Sano di Pietro: the Madonna and Child with Saints Jerome and Bernardino, and the Coronation of the Virgin (1450-1460). A polyptych by Andrea di Bartolo (1413) completes the fourth chapel on the left.
Under the church is the crypt with the Petrucci burial place, where Pandolfo rests. In the convent opens Pandolfo's loggia and, in the refectory, a Last Supper by Francesco Franci (1710); in the Castelli museum is kept the reliquary of Saint Bernardino, from the mid-15th century.
On January 23, 1944 American bombs reduced the basilica almost to rubble. Today, though, it looks intact, because after the war the architect Egisto Bellini rebuilt it as it was, thanks to photographs and the friars' testimony. It was reconsecrated in 1949.
It was not the first time it had risen again: the siege of Siena in 1554 had already damaged it. After the Baroque reconstruction, it had a heavy restoration between 1922 and 1932, and in 1924 it was raised to minor basilica.
The convent was founded in 1403 by Blessed Giovanni da Stroncone. The construction of the church is traced back to 1476, and the work ended in the 1490s: the design was probably by Francesco di Giorgio Martini, with the collaboration of Giacomo Cozzarelli.
Pandolfo Petrucci enlarged the convent after 1495, and later, after 1505, so did Fra Timoteo de' Medici.