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Siena is the perfect antidote to Florence, a unified, modern city at ease with its medieval aspect, ambience and traditions - indeed, exultant about them. It's a place not easily read by outsiders, and to get anything meaningful from a visit you'll need to stay at least one night; too many visitors breeze through on a day-trip.
Self-contained and still part-rural behind its medieval walls, Siena's great attraction is its cityscape, a majestic Gothic ensemble that could be enjoyed without venturing into a single museum. The physical and spiritual heart of the city is the great scallop-shaped piazza il Campo, loveliest of all Italian squares and scene of the thrilling Palio bareback horse-race. Siena's Duomo and Palazzo Pubblico are two of the purest examples of Italian Gothic architecture, and the best of the city's paintings - collected in the Museo Civico and Pinacoteca Nazionale - are in the same tradition; the finest example of Sienese Gothic is Duccio's Maesta, on show in the outstanding Museo dell'Opera del Duomo. More frescoes fill the halls of Santa Maria della Scala, the city's hospital for over 900 years and now its premier exhibition space.
For a hundred years or so, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Siena was one of the major cities of Europe. Virtually the size of Paris, it controlled most of southern Tuscany and its wool industry, dominated the trade routes between France and Rome, and maintained Italy's richest pre-Medici banks. Siena has again become prosperous, due partly to tourism and partly to the resurgence of the Monte dei Paschi di Siena. This bank, founded in Siena in 1472 and currently the city's largest employer, is one of the major players in Italian finance. It today sponsors much of Siena's cultural life, co-existing, apparently easily, with one of Italy's strongest left-wing councils.
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