The historic centre of Pienza, like the Val d'Orcia that welcomes it, has been a Unesco heritage site since 1996, and it could not be otherwise, since Pienza is the "ideal" Renaissance city commissioned by Pope Pius II. The most important monuments of the city, reworked between 1459 and 1462, are located in the square of the same name. The background is Mount Amiata and the characteristic vegetati

Pienza: the ideal city

Built on a hill overlooking the Val d'Orcia, south of the province of Siena, Pienza is the most important example of an 'Ideal City' of the Renaissance. Before 1459, Pienza was a small village called Corsignano, and it was here that Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II, was born.