Pienza Cathedral

Pope Pius II, born Enea Silvio Piccolomini in the village then called Corsignano, decided in 1459 to remake his birthplace into an ideal Renaissance town and renamed it Pienza after himself; the co-cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, designed by Bernardo Rossellino, anchors the plan and was raised and consecrated within three years, on August 29, 1462. Pius, who had traveled widely in Germany as a papal legate, asked for a hall church interior with three naves of equal height, a northern Gothic form almost unheard of in Tuscany, lit by tall windows that flood the nave with rare light. The travertine facade, carrying the Piccolomini coat of arms, looks out over Piazza Pio II, part of the same unified design. The ground beneath the apse proved unstable almost immediately, and cracks that appeared within Pius's own lifetime still require monitoring today.