The name of Pienza is strictly linked to the Pope Pio 2nd, whose family name was Enea Silvio Piccolomini, who was born there in 1405 by a noble family who was then confined in the country property further to certain political events.
The ancient name of Pienza was Corsignano, a fortified burgh already known to Roman people and with witnesses dated of the Upper Neolitic Age and Bronze Age.
Enea Silvio Piccolomini, a refined and appreciated, as he enter the Church career and became Pope, he wanted to built up a city there who could remind his Papacy as he was born there.
Piccolomini did not want a whatever city but a urban centre worthy and antithetical to Siena from where he was emarginated along with his family.
Thus he wanted famous architects and artists to work for a project in which the building and phylosophical feature should be implicit of an age rich in promises that was next to open: the Italian Renaissance. Only in three years, since 1459 to 1462 Pienza, the Author's city, the Ideal City, the Utopy City rose up. The city that “was born from a love thought and from a dream of beauty” as the Poet Giovanni Pascoli wrote.
It is difficult to state what Pienza could become, if the Pope had not died before his time on the day before a Crusade against the Muslims. It was august the 4th 1464. In three years and a half the core and something more than “Pio's city” was already born. “Corsignan de' Ladri”, (Thieves' Corsignano), the fronteer burgh that already Boccaccio had remembered in his famous novel of Cecco di Fortarrigo (IX, 4, Decameron), could change the name and the image thanks to his great protector.
The surroundings
Around Pienza there are scenarios and lands including other villages that tell about the history of the place. Pienza lays in Orcia river Valley and intrroduce you to Chiana Channel Valley, still in the province of Siena via Montepulciano, another land particularly suitable to wine production and where many pages of history have been written.
Orcia valley can be viewed by natural terraces on the borderlines of the city of Pienza and in the clearest days you can distinguish Amiata and Cetona mountains. A few km far from Pienza there is Monticchiello, well known for its “Teatro Povero” (Poor theatre) and for the enter way to the village that is taken in many pictures: the winding road limited by typical Tuscan cypress trees.
In Orcia Valley there is also the other pioneer land of wine tourism: Montalcino, known for its Brunello DOCG (Granted and controled name of origin).
Cettainly Pienza can mathc another excellent product to wine: the DOP Sheep cheese. Let yourself be guided by experts and don't let yourself be guided only by the smell of cheese that goes throughout the village streets starting from its food shops. Go and visit the farms where sheep use to pasture and buy the cheese there. You will have the warranty of its origin, made with local milk and you'll save money for sure.
How to get there
