Italy Guide
Tuscany
The Duomo
Website: www.operaDuomo.siena.it
Opening time: March– May, Sept & Oct Mon– Sat 10.30am–5.30pm, Sun 1.30–5.30pm; June– Aug Mon– Sat 10.30am–8pm, Sun 1.30–6pm; Nov– Feb Mon– Sat 10.30am–6.30pm, Sun 1.30–5.30pm
Price: €3, €6 during the summer uncovering of the marble pavement
Seina's Duomo is a delight, its style an amazing conglomeration of Romanesque and Gothic, delineated by bands of black and white marble. The facade was designed in 1284 by Giovanni Pisano, who with his workshop created much of the statuary – philosophers, patriarchs and prophets, now replaced by copies. In the next century the Campanile and a Gothic rose window were added. The mosaics in the gables, however, had to wait until the nineteenth century.
The use of black and white decoration is continued in the sgraffito marble pavement, which begins outside the church and takes off into a startling sequence of 56 panels adorning the interior. They were completed between 1349 and 1547, with virtually every artist who worked in the city trying his hand on a design. However, you're unlikely to see much of the pavement, which is now protected by boarding for all but a few weeks a year in late summer. The greatest individual artistic treasure is Nicola Pisano's pulpit, with its elaborate high-relief detail of the Life of Jesus and Last Judgement. In the north transept is a bronze statue by Donatello, the emaciated St John the Baptist, companion piece to his equally ragged Mary Magdalene in Florence (see Duomo), and superb candelabra-carrying angels by Beccafumi flank the Renaissance High Altar.
Midway along the nave, on the left, is the entrance to the stunning Libreria Piccolomini. The library was commissioned by Francesco Piccolomini (who for ten days was Pius III) to house the books of his uncle Aeneas (Pius II), and to celebrate Aeneas's life in a series of crystal-sharp, brilliantly colourful frescoes by Pinturicchio.