It is a stiff walk to the oratory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Arezzo. The building is not situated in the city centre, but about one kilometre south of it. The route to the oratory is nevertheless quite simple. From the train station of Arezzo one can follow the…
My first visit to Siena was in 2010. It was a rainy day and we got lost on the way to the city centre (which is quite an achievement: Siena is not that big). We had lunch at a mediocre restaurant that served factory-made tiramisu, which really should be a…
The Piccolominis were a prominent and influential family from Siena. Their influence was not confined to the city itself: two of the family’s most famous members became popes. Enea Silvio Piccolomini (1405-1464) was elected Pope Pius II in 1458 and held that position until his death in 1464. His nephew…
The Sant’Andrea della Valle is a huge church in the rione Sant’Eustachio, not far from the Campo de’ Fiori and the Piazza Navona. It was built at the site of a much older church (the San Sebastiano in Via Papae) and a palazzo that was the property of the influential…