Palazzo Pubblico and the Allegory of Good Government
The frescoes that explain how a city should be run
Inside Siena's town hall, the Museo Civico holds some of the most important secular paintings of the Middle Ages. In the Sala del Mappamondo, Simone Martini's Maestà and the equestrian portrait of Guidoriccio da Fogliano face each other across the room.
Next door, in the Sala dei Nove where the city's rulers met, Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted between 1338 and 1339 the Allegory of Good and Bad Government: on one wall a peaceful, busy city where merchants trade and girls dance, with the farmed countryside beyond; on the other, a ruined town ruled by Tyranny. It is one of the first great landscapes in European art, and a political message that still speaks today.
Tip: combine the museum with the climb of the Torre del Mangia; tickets for the tower are limited by time slot.
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