Overview
Siena began an enormous extension in 1339 that would have made this the transept of the largest church in the world, and the plague of 1348 stopped it; the unfinished nave still stands beside the cathedral as a wall of arches open to the sky. Inside, Nicola Pisano’s pulpit of 1268 and the Piccolomini Library, frescoed by Pinturicchio and still holding its illuminated choirbooks, are the two things not to miss. The floor is uncovered for roughly two months each autumn.
Highlights
Check whether the floor is uncovered before choosing dates — it changes the visit completely and the schedule is published a year ahead. The Facciatone, the top of that unfinished wall, is climbable and gives the view down onto the cathedral itself. The combined ticket covers the library, the museum, the baptistery and the crypt with its rediscovered thirteenth-century frescoes.