Piazza del Campo Audio Guide

Piazza del Campo: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Piazza del Campo

   Welcome to Piazza del Campo, the main public space of the historic center of Siena, in Tuscany. Locals simply call it the Campo. It is regarded as one of the greatest medieval squares in Europe, and the historic center around it was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995 for its remarkable preservation of medieval city planning and architectural harmony. Take a moment to find your bearings. The Campo is not a rectangle. It slopes gently down like a shallow bowl toward the Palazzo Pubblico, the town hall, with its slender tower rising beside it. The whole square seems to lean toward that building as if pulled by gravity, and that is no accident. This is a place that was designed to make a point. Over the next few minutes we will look at how the square was planned, read the story written in its paving, and then turn to the town hall, its tower, and the fountain that faces it. Sit down on the bricks if you like. That is exactly what the Sienese do.

2. 02

   A Square Planned for the Whole Town

   The Campo sits at the meeting point of the three main roads that lead to and from Siena. That made it a natural neutral ground, a place where political and civic holidays could be celebrated by everyone. It was conceived as an area where the entire population could gather for games, events, and public life. Work to organize the square began as early as 1169. What you see around you was carefully controlled. In 1297, before the civic buildings rose, the city government set down guidelines for how the square and the buildings facing it should look. The statutes spoke of the beauty of the city and the satisfaction of its people. The noble families who lived here, among them the Sansedoni, the Piccolomini, and the Saracini, built palaces with unified rooflines. That was a deliberate statement of decorum, set against the soaring tower houses that were seen as symbols of communal strife. You can still see those towers at San Gimignano, not far from Siena. The square kept evolving. In the Baroque period many of the original towers came down, and balconies with rectangular openings replaced pointed-arch windows on some houses facing the town hall. Then in the nineteenth century, a wish to renovate the city in a medieval spirit brought another round of changes. The Campo you see is a layered conversation between centuries.

3. 03

   The Shell Beneath Your Feet

   Look down. The square has a circumference of 333 meters, and its paving is a pattern of red bricks laid in a herringbone design, divided by 10 lines of white travertine. Those lines create nine sections that fan out toward the Palazzo Pubblico, giving the Campo its famous shell shape. The nine sections are traditionally linked to the nine governors of the Government of the Nine, which was long considered one of the most stable and peaceful governments in Italy. According to a popular tradition, the sections were meant to evoke the folds of the cloak of the Virgin Mary, who is not only the patron saint of the city but was also regarded as Siena's supreme ruler. Some have suggested a different reading, that the harmonious form of the square represents the landscape of the Montone valley. Here is a pleasing detail. There is no document saying that every street was meant to lead the eye to the town hall. Yet if you walk in through many of the square's 11 openings, your gaze goes almost automatically to the civic building or to its tower.

4. 04

   Town Hall, Tower, and Fountain

   The Palazzo Pubblico is considered a perfect example of civil Gothic architecture. It was planned from 1282 and built between 1297 and 1310 for the Government of the Nine, and it is still the seat of the city administration and home to the Civic Museum. Inside, Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Allegory of Good and Bad Government was painted to teach citizens the value of sound rule. A mid-fifteenth-century painting by Sano di Pietro, showing Saint Bernardino preaching in the Campo, reveals the palace as it looked then. In 1680 the architect Carlo Fontana added the top floor of the side wings and the left bell gable, keeping the original style. Beside it rises the Torre del Mangia. It takes its name from its first bell-ringer, Giovanni di Balduccio, nicknamed the Mangiaguadagni, which means profit eater. At its foot stands the marble Piazza Chapel, built in 1352 to thank the Virgin Mary for the end of the Black Death, which had struck the city in 1348. Now turn around to face the opposite side of the square. There you will find the Fonte Gaia, built in 1346 and long the pride and joy of Siena. The marble carvings you see today are copies by Tito Sarrocchi of the originals commissioned in 1409 from Jacopo della Quercia. Those originals can be visited in the museum of the Spedale di Santa Maria della Scala. The fountain is fed by underground tunnels, the bottini, a network some 25 kilometers long in all.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   The Campo is still the stage of Siena's biggest moments. It hosts the Palio, the carnival celebrations, and the many open-air events the city organizes under the summer sky. It is also the finish line of the annual road cycling race Strade Bianche. On an ordinary day, though, its magic is quieter. Depending on the hour, people sit in warm sun or in the cool shadow of the palace and tower, simply admiring a square that has been shaping the way the city gathers for centuries. Before you go, try one more experiment. Walk in through different entrances and notice what your eyes do. Look for the herringbone brick and the white travertine lines, and then find the original story behind the fountain across from the tower. Every corner of the Campo has a little more to tell you.