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Home page > Highlighted Towns in Tuscany > Near Siena > Pienza, built in the on an "utopian" theme
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Pienza, built in the on an "utopian" theme
the proportions of the small Tuscan town portray the love and dedication of a small priest made pope.
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Pienza was rebuilt
in the 1300's to accomodate the specific designs of a design from Alberto Alberti and is a rare example of a Renaissance town design. Often described as the "ideal city" or the "utopian city", it represents one of the best planned models of ideal living, based on the concept of a town able to satisfy the needs of a peaceful and hardworking populace. Pienza was the birthplace (1405) of Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, a Renaissance humanist, who later became Pope Pius II. Piccolomini had the entire village rebuilt in order to honor his homeland. Intended as a retreat from Rome, it represents the first application of humanist urban planning concepts.
Pienza ("Pio's Town")
The pope liked the result so much he felt the village needed a new name for its new look, and he modestly decided to rename it after himself. Interestingly enough Rossellino the main architect, reportedly changed the accounts so that the Pope was never fully aware of the actual cost. Pope Pio was so pleased with his makeover that when he found out about the cost, is said to have pardoned the architect, "You did well, Bernardo, in lying to us about the expense. . . . Your deceit has built these glorious structures, which are praised by all except the few consumed with envy." When the pope went south to try to drum up support for a Crusade to the Holy Land, he left a papal bull prohibiting anyone from changing the plans of the city and up until this date, Pienza has dutifully kept the cathedral and palaces exactly as Pius II left them in the 15th century -- the only Renaissance town center in Italy to survive the centuries perfectly intact.
Today the beautiful duomo is in constant peril of crumbling from its perch on the top of the hill. A rather novel design for its time except for the bell tower, however, which a Germanic flavor possibily to honor the Pope since before he became pope, served many years in Germany and praised the effects of light admitted into the German hall churches.
Pienza's location in the centre of the Val d'Orcia, a wonderful and untouched valley, helps the town to embody the fundamental principle that humanistic architecture attempted to encorporate - the balanced relationship between Man and Nature.
- Distance from Rome Airport (km) 90
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