Its the beginning of September 2015 and time to start thinking about our upcoming holiday in Italy. It's with some trepidation that we make our plans given the recent devastation that has taken place only a couple of hours drive away from our little town in Umbria. I'm still thinking about the plight of the victims and their families every day!.
Earth movements with resultant effects on buildings are commonplace in most parts of Italy and the quake in Umbria has reminded me of a visit we made last September to the beautiful and unique little Tuscan town of Pienza just over an hour's drive west from our place In Citta della Pieve. There a small cathedral sits precariously on the side of a cliff and the building has seen damage over the centuries as a result - but more about that later.
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THE TUSCAN TOWN OF PIENZA SITS ON A TUFA CLIFF AND
IS DOMINATED BY THE CATHEDRAL
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This amazing little place, close to the better known Tuscan town of Montepulciano, owes its origins to the Renaissance Pope Pius II who was born Enea Silvio Piccolomini in the local village of Corsignano in 1405. After his election as Pope he visited his home village in 1459 and resolved to build a new church and palace at the place where his life had begun. He chose Florentine architect - Bernardo Rossellino to create his vision and what is remarkable is that the whole project was completed between 1459 and 1464. The place was renamed Pienza after the Pope but the name also referred to its status as "a pious place".
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| THE STUNNING VAL d' ORCIA SEEN FROM PIENZA |
In true Renaissance spirit Pope and architect conceived the town as a model settlement where people would live, work and worship peacefully and where a rational approach to everything from street layout to building design would be underpinned by renaissance principles of geometry and classical proportions. This, it was envisaged, would replace the chaotic nature of the medieval village and promote the desired values. Harmony and balance would be rooted in the essential fabric of the place.
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PIENZA - STREET PLAN & CENTRAL PIAZZA
SHOWING POSITION OF CATHEDRAL & PALAZZO PICCOLOMINI |
The map of the town shows a regular main street with side streets arranged at right angles to this principal thoroughfare. Squares - public spaces - were introduced in to the plan to accommodate not only an open air market, but social events as well - just as had been the case in Roman towns. Optical illusions were introduced to maintain the feeling of "harmony" as one walked through the streets. For example the main street still has a slight bend to it in the middle so that walking down it you don't see both ends at once. This makes it appear longer than it actually is. The square fronting the cathedral is not a perfect square but deliberately designed as a trapezium to create an impression of breadth. Walk round the back streets of the town today and the narrow roadway makes a perfect viewing platform for the spectacular Tuscan landscape of the Val d'Orcia - one of the glories of central Italy at any time of year, but especially beautiful in the late summer - the time when we were there.
Palazzo Piccolomini, originally desinged to be the Pope's residence in the town, is considered by some to be one of the earliest classical Renaissance buildings in this part of Italy and it is clearly influenced by the Florentine Palazzo Rucellai by the renowned Alberti. Parts of the building are open to the public and from the three tiered loggia there are good views of the astonishingly beautiful countryside below.
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| CATHEDRAL & PALAZZO PICCOLOMINI - PIENZA |
Next door is the spectacular cathedral which you must go inside if you visit the town for it is here that the glories and problems of the town are seen side by side.
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| THE GLORIOUS VAULTED CEILING OF THE CATHEDRAL |
The cathedral was built on the site of an ancient parish church dedicated to Santa Maria but orientated in a different direction to the original. The new church was designed so its impressive travertine classical front facade would look over the central piazza and with its presbytery thus necessarily extending out over a precipitous slope of clay and tufa - an old volcanic material. This evidently started to become unstable and cause problems for the builders even before the structure was finished. Cracks were visible the day the cathedral was inaugurated. Since the early 1500's restoration work on the church has been regularly carried out to prevent this end of it collapsing. Because of its alignment and large windows however - one of the glories of the cathedral over the centuries has been the wonderful and mysterious light effects created at different times of day inside the church.
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RED LINE INDICATES APSE CRACKS BEFORE
CONSOLIDATION WORK WAS BEGUN IN 1910 |
The problems for the building accelerated in the early decades of the 20th century and between 1910 and 1934 a massive project was put in place to create new sub foundations for the affected part of the church. According to the research I've done the apse currently sits on a huge block of masonry 10 storeys high and with many metres of narrow inspection galleries criss-crossing it where movement and rainwater ingress can be constantly and carefully monitored. There are parts of this structure that are open to the public but I couldn't access these on the day of our visit. The process of deterioration was arrested and slowed down but not completely stopped; today the land continues to obey the forces of gravity and very gradually it continues to move downhill. Walking through the church is a strange almost surreal experience - the changes of level are disconcerting and the cracks truly disturbing. A landslide sometime in the future is not beyond the realms of possibility!!
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| WALL DAMAGE SEEN IN THE APSE AREA IN SEPTEMBER 2017 |
Records show that after the end of the Republic of Siena in the 16th century the whole are of the Val d'Orcia, including Pienza, went in to decline and in fact eventually became an area of extreme poverty in the early 20th century. Only improvements to the agricultural system in the area in the 1960's and the more recent development of tourism have led to greater prosperity. So important is the area considered to be historically that UNESCO declared Pienza a World Heritage Site in 1996 and the same status was afforded the Val d'Orcia generally in 2004.
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| PIENZA VIEWPOINT |
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| TAKING IN THE VIEW |
Pienza is a must if you are visiting Tuscany. Its beautiful, arresting and fascinating in equal measures. All of it is memorable, but if you must eat and shop - well there are lots of nice restaurants and specialist boutiques and galleries to browse in along the main street. The shop selling local cheeses is well worth seeking out and there are lots of products to taste inside. If you are on the Tuscan trail do go and enjoy what has to be one of central Italy's most alluring towns.
THERE ARE OVER 90 POSTS MAKING UP THIS BLOG SO I HOPEYOU WILL CONSIDER LOOKING AT SOME OF THE OTHER LISTINGS OR EVEN CONSIDER BECOMING A FOLLOWER - THUS HELPING ME KEEP IT ALIVE - CHEERS IAN
UPDATE
October 2016
We've back in Umbria this month and just driven back from Montalcino to Citta via Pienza. We stopped the car to take a photograph of the back of the town from the road and it looks as though once again work is being done on the cathedral foundations - a huge crane was visible which can be seen in the photograph below.
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CONSTRUCTION CRANE AT THE SITE OF THE REAR OF PIENZA CATHEDRAL - OCTOBER 2016
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