Description
Piazza del Duomo is the square on the hill of Santa Maria, in Siena, overlooked by the cathedral's facade, the old Santa Maria della Scala hospital and the Archbishop's Palace.
It is L-shaped and, to the right of the cathedral, continues into the large space that was meant to be the Duomo Nuovo.
It is a square built for light. For much of the day the sun lights up the cathedral facade without the surrounding buildings, close but carefully calibrated, casting it into shadow.
Giovanni Pisano made its lower part between 1285 and 1296, Camaino di Crescentino the upper part, finished in 1317.
The square reached its present form only after centuries.
The cathedral was perhaps brought here in the seventh century; from the eleventh century, with the Duomo, the square began to take shape, which was almost definitive only in the seventeenth century, when the old bishop's palace was torn down and the right side of the church was freed.
On either side of the steps two she-wolves with the twins stand on columns: they are copies, because the originals, by Giovanni Pisano and Urbano da Cortona, are kept safe in the Museo dell'Opera. Copies too are the marble inlays in front of the entrances, from 1450, and Donatello's bas-relief on the Porta del Perdono.
Opposite the cathedral, on the other side, is the Santa Maria della Scala, the old hospital that owes its name precisely to those steps.
To the north stands the Archbishop's Palace, its eighteenth-century facade disguised in the Sienese Gothic style of the fourteenth century. The black-and-white striped bell tower took in part of the ancient Bisdomini tower.
To the right of the cathedral opens Piazza Jacopo della Quercia, where the fourteenth-century cathedral was meant to rise. What remains is its first nave, home to the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, and the "Facciatone". The Palazzo Reale, by Buontalenti, built for the Medici governor, also faces onto it.
It is L-shaped and, to the right of the cathedral, continues into the large space that was meant to be the Duomo Nuovo.
It is a square built for light. For much of the day the sun lights up the cathedral facade without the surrounding buildings, close but carefully calibrated, casting it into shadow.
Giovanni Pisano made its lower part between 1285 and 1296, Camaino di Crescentino the upper part, finished in 1317.
The square reached its present form only after centuries.
The cathedral was perhaps brought here in the seventh century; from the eleventh century, with the Duomo, the square began to take shape, which was almost definitive only in the seventeenth century, when the old bishop's palace was torn down and the right side of the church was freed.
On either side of the steps two she-wolves with the twins stand on columns: they are copies, because the originals, by Giovanni Pisano and Urbano da Cortona, are kept safe in the Museo dell'Opera. Copies too are the marble inlays in front of the entrances, from 1450, and Donatello's bas-relief on the Porta del Perdono.
Opposite the cathedral, on the other side, is the Santa Maria della Scala, the old hospital that owes its name precisely to those steps.
To the north stands the Archbishop's Palace, its eighteenth-century facade disguised in the Sienese Gothic style of the fourteenth century. The black-and-white striped bell tower took in part of the ancient Bisdomini tower.
To the right of the cathedral opens Piazza Jacopo della Quercia, where the fourteenth-century cathedral was meant to rise. What remains is its first nave, home to the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, and the "Facciatone". The Palazzo Reale, by Buontalenti, built for the Medici governor, also faces onto it.