Siena

Siena was first settled in Etruscan times, and a Roman town called Saena Iulia was founded on the site under Augustus. Local legend gives it a grander origin: it was said to have been founded by Senius and Aschius, sons of Remus, and wolves, recalling the mother-wolf of Romulus and Remus, spout water on the Fonte Gaia in the Campo. The first known record of the community dates from 70 AD, when a Roman senator complained that he had been mocked with a fake funeral during an official visit to the small colony.

The city's golden age came in the 13th and 14th centuries. Wool and banking made it rich, guilds regulated its trades, the University was founded in 1240, and the republic built the cathedral, the Palazzo Pubblico and the Campo. Siena had about 50,000 people before the Black Death of 1348 killed roughly half of them and halted the vast extension of the cathedral, whose unfinished walls still stand. Painters such as Duccio, Simone Martini and the Lorenzetti brothers gave the city its own school of art, and in the 1330s Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted the Good and Bad Government frescoes for the council chamber. In 1472 the Monte dei Paschi was founded; it is the oldest bank in the world still operating.

The long rivalry with Florence ended in the Italian War of 1551–1559, when Florence and Spain besieged the city. Siena surrendered to Spain on 17 April 1555 after eighteen months of resistance, and in 1559 the republic was ceded to the Medici, whose new fortress was built in 1561–1563 to hold the city. After the Medici line died out in 1737, Siena passed with the rest of the grand duchy to the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty. The historic centre was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995.

Siena's identity is built on its seventeen contrade, the city wards originally formed as battalions for its defence. Each has an animal or emblem — the Eagle, Caterpillar, Snail, Owl, Dragon, Giraffe, Porcupine, Unicorn, She-wolf, Seashell, Goose, Wave, Panther, Forest, Tortoise, Tower and Ram — and its own boundary, church, museum and celebrations; the feast of one of the city's patron saints marks the start of the contrada year. The rivalries come to a head in the Palio on 2 July and 16 August, when ten contrade send bareback riders three times around the Campo, covered with earth for the race, in about ninety seconds, after a long historical pageant. The prize is a painted banner bearing an image of the Virgin Mary.

Art is the other pillar. The Sienese school of Duccio, Simone Martini and the Lorenzetti brothers developed in parallel with Florence's and influenced painting across Europe; in 2024 and 2025 an exhibition on the rise of Sienese painting was held at the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the National Gallery in London. Catherine of Siena, born and raised in the city in the 14th century and now a patron saint of Italy, is venerated at San Domenico.

Music continues at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana, founded in 1932 by Count Guido Chigi-Saracini, which runs master classes and summer concerts in his palace on Via di Città. The Strade Bianche cycle race finishes in the Campo each March, and in 2025 the city won the European Green Leaf Award for 2027.

About 53,000 people live in the comune, according to the 2026 figure. The population is old — more than a quarter are over 65 — and about one resident in seven is an immigrant. The University of Siena, founded in 1240 as the Studium Senese, keeps a student population in the old centre.

The main activities are tourism, services, agriculture, handicrafts and light industry, with growth in biotechnology. The Monte dei Paschi, the oldest bank in the world, still has its head office in Palazzo Salimbeni, and in 2025 it acquired Mediobanca, becoming Italy's third-largest bank. A seasonal confectionery industry turns out panforte, ricciarelli and cavallucci for Christmas and pane co' santi for All Saints' and All Souls' days.

Inside the walls the city is divided into the three terzi — Città, San Martino and Camollia — and the seventeen contrade within them, each with its own boundary and identity, so that a Sienese belongs to a ward as well as to the city. Cars are largely kept out of the centre, and small buses serve its streets and link it with the newer districts below the walls.

Sienese cooking belongs to the Tuscan tradition but has its own specialities. Pici, thick hand-rolled pasta like fat spaghetti, come from the province of Siena; the dough is usually just flour and water, rolled into strands slightly thinner than a pencil and uneven because they are made by hand, and served with meat sauces and other dressings.

The city is best known for its sweets. Panforte is a chewy cake dense with fruit and nuts, an Italian Christmas tradition associated above all with the province of Siena. Ricciarelli, soft almond biscuits, date from 14th-century Siena and are counted among its signature sweets along with cenci and cavallucci, Christmas pastries made with anise, walnuts, candied fruit, coriander and flour and traditionally sweetened with millefiori honey. Pane co' santi is baked for All Saints' Day on 1 November and All Souls' Day the next day.

The surrounding province produces some of Tuscany's best-known wines, with Chianti Classico to the north and Brunello di Montalcino and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano to the south. A large market fills the area around the Fortezza on Wednesday mornings.