Palazzo Pubblico & Civic Museum
Palazzo Pubblico & Civic Museum is one of the narrated stops on the self-guided Siena audio walking tour in Gingerguide. Plan about ~90 min here. Press play at the spot for its two to three minute story, or ask the AI guide anything about it.
- Type palace
- Suggested visit ~90 min
- Siena Siena guide
About Palazzo Pubblico & Civic Museum
Siena's Gothic town hall (begun 1297) houses the Civic Museum containing Simone Martini's sublime Maestà (1315) and Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Allegory of Good and Bad Government (1338–39), perhaps the most important secular fresco cycle in medieval European art.
The Palazzo Pubblico is the Gothic town hall of Siena, begun in 1297 and occupying the entire flat southern end of Piazza del Campo. It was the seat of the government of the Sienese Republic, the Council of Nine and its successors, and its construction and decoration was one of the most ambitious civic art programmes of the medieval world. The Civic Museum (Museo Civico) inside contains two of the most important works of Italian medieval art.
The Sala del Mappamondo contains Simone Martini's Maestà (1315, with later revisions), one of the supreme masterpieces of the Sienese school: the Virgin enthroned in majesty surrounded by saints and angels, painted with extraordinary refinement of line and colour. On the opposite wall, Martini's equestrian portrait of Guidoriccio da Fogliano (c.1330) is the earliest surviving equestrian portrait in European secular painting.
The adjacent Sala della Pace contains Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Allegory of Good and Bad Government (1338–39), the most important secular fresco cycle of the medieval period, a vivid depiction of the effects of just and unjust rule on city and countryside, unique in medieval art for its naturalistic townscape and landscape.
Did you know? Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Effects of Good Government fresco (1338–39) is one of the earliest naturalistic depictions of a real city in Western post-classical art, Siena's streets, market, and buildings painted with a specificity of place that had been absent from European painting for a thousand years.
How long should you spend at Palazzo Pubblico & Civic Museum?
Plan about ~90 min at Palazzo Pubblico & Civic Museum. That is enough to take it in and hear its narrated story; stay longer if it grabs you. The tour is self-guided, so there is no rush.
Is Palazzo Pubblico & Civic Museum worth visiting?
Palazzo Pubblico & Civic Museum is one of the 20 sights the Gingerguide team researched and narrated in Siena, so it earns a place on a self-guided walk. Its story explains why it matters, and you can ask the AI guide anything the story leaves open.
Nearby stops in Siena
Hear the story of Palazzo Pubblico & Civic Museum
Preview the Siena tour free in the Gingerguide app.