Description
The Museo dell'Opera Metropolitana, or Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, stands beside Siena Cathedral and is housed in what was meant to be the right nave of the "Duomo Nuovo", the fourteenth-century project for a gigantic church that was never finished.
It keeps the masterpieces removed from the cathedral over the centuries, Duccio's Maestà foremost, and a terrace with a view over the city.
The museum was established in 1869 and spreads over several floors.
You enter a large hall with the sculptures Giovanni Pisano made for the cathedral's facade between 1284 and 1296: Moses, Simeon, Isaiah, David, Solomon, but also the pagan philosophers Plato and Aristotle. These are the originals; the facade has the copies.
In the same hall are Donatello's Madonna del Perdono, which stood over the cathedral's transept portal, and Jacopo della Quercia's relief of the Madonna, Saint Jerome and Cardinal Casini kneeling.
On the back wall is the large stained-glass window of the Assumption designed by Duccio in 1287-1288, the oldest known figurative stained glass made in Italy.
On the first floor is the Sala di Duccio, dominated by the Maestà, from 1308-1311, with the panels that formed its back, the predella and the pinnacles.
For two centuries it adorned the cathedral's high altar, until in 1506 it was removed: it was considered old-fashioned. With it, critics say, the glorious age of Sienese painting begins. The room also has Pietro Lorenzetti's Birth of the Virgin.
The Treasury Room holds goldwork, reliquaries, the tiara of Pope Alexander VII and a golden rose from Bernini's workshop. On the second floor is the Madonna of the Large Eyes, a painted panel from the second quarter of the thirteenth century, before which the Sienese made their vow on the eve of the Battle of Montaperti, in 1260.
On the same floor Sano di Pietro shows Saint Bernardino preaching in Piazza del Campo and in Piazza San Francesco: scenes that vividly describe the buildings, clothes and life of the time. At the end, two flights of spiral stairs lead to the terrace on the Facciatone, from which you can see the cathedral and the city.
Don't miss
• Duccio's Maestà.
• Giovanni Pisano's statues.
• Duccio's stained-glass window.
• The terrace on the Facciatone.
Did you know?
• In the Saloncino dei Conversari, in 1777, Vittorio Alfieri read some of his tragedies in public.
• The Frosini Reliquary, stolen in 1988, was found in pieces in 2020 and restored in 2023.
It keeps the masterpieces removed from the cathedral over the centuries, Duccio's Maestà foremost, and a terrace with a view over the city.
The museum was established in 1869 and spreads over several floors.
You enter a large hall with the sculptures Giovanni Pisano made for the cathedral's facade between 1284 and 1296: Moses, Simeon, Isaiah, David, Solomon, but also the pagan philosophers Plato and Aristotle. These are the originals; the facade has the copies.
In the same hall are Donatello's Madonna del Perdono, which stood over the cathedral's transept portal, and Jacopo della Quercia's relief of the Madonna, Saint Jerome and Cardinal Casini kneeling.
On the back wall is the large stained-glass window of the Assumption designed by Duccio in 1287-1288, the oldest known figurative stained glass made in Italy.
On the first floor is the Sala di Duccio, dominated by the Maestà, from 1308-1311, with the panels that formed its back, the predella and the pinnacles.
For two centuries it adorned the cathedral's high altar, until in 1506 it was removed: it was considered old-fashioned. With it, critics say, the glorious age of Sienese painting begins. The room also has Pietro Lorenzetti's Birth of the Virgin.
The Treasury Room holds goldwork, reliquaries, the tiara of Pope Alexander VII and a golden rose from Bernini's workshop. On the second floor is the Madonna of the Large Eyes, a painted panel from the second quarter of the thirteenth century, before which the Sienese made their vow on the eve of the Battle of Montaperti, in 1260.
On the same floor Sano di Pietro shows Saint Bernardino preaching in Piazza del Campo and in Piazza San Francesco: scenes that vividly describe the buildings, clothes and life of the time. At the end, two flights of spiral stairs lead to the terrace on the Facciatone, from which you can see the cathedral and the city.
Don't miss
• Duccio's Maestà.
• Giovanni Pisano's statues.
• Duccio's stained-glass window.
• The terrace on the Facciatone.
Did you know?
• In the Saloncino dei Conversari, in 1777, Vittorio Alfieri read some of his tragedies in public.
• The Frosini Reliquary, stolen in 1988, was found in pieces in 2020 and restored in 2023.