Buonconvento Today

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Today, Buonconvento boasts a population of three thousand, restored walls, several quality restaurants, and two exceptional museums. Its authentic nature and the high quality of its offerings make it a perfect starting and ending point for a day’s journey. As such, I recommend exploring early because you may well find things to which you want to return. However, if you will visit Buonconvento only once on your stay, make it from five to six in the evening for a true Tuscan slice of life. This is the hour of the daily passeggiata, or evening stroll through town. It is a time to see and be seen and is always lively, even in the depths of winter. Women link arms and visit each other at shopfronts all along the Vias Roma and Soccini. Men grab an afternoon aperitivo and gather outside the bar in the Piazza Matteotti to watch the action. Buonconvento takes on the look of Richard Scary’s “Busy Town” as the butcher, the baker, and the mailman step outside to enjoy a bit of the town’s busy public life.

Walking Tour of Buonconvento
Entering from Bibbiano, it is easiest to park at the Coop on the left or to continue on to the Piazza Garibaldi to the right. Other parking must be accessed from the Via Cassia, either immediately in front of the town walls on the Cassia, or turning west at the northwest corner of the walls and driving around the walls to the town’s spare parking lot.

A walking tour of town might begin at the Piazza Matteotti, the site of the now-missing porta Romana and entrance to the central, walled portion of town. Here, the Via Roma becomes the Via Soccini. Shortly on your right is an agenzia di viaggio (travel agent), where you can find a map of Buonconvento that marks its stores and sights. A second travel agency sits in the Piazza Matteotti.

The central part of town is small enough that it is difficult to lose one’s way. Stroll down the main drag in the form of the Via Soccini, passing two restaurants (Osteria da Duccio and da Mario), a cafe (Mimo), and several shops.

Ahead, the Palazzo Podestarile with its civic tower occupies the curved part of the block on your right. The Sienese government built the palazzo in 1385, just after fortifying the town. The facade is typical Sienese medieval and was most recently restored in 1921, boasting gothic arches and twenty four coats of arms of local gentry. The interior lacked space for the city’s growing civic needs and thus was sold to private hands, but the comune maintains the tower.

The actual Palazzo Comunale is just before the Podestarile, at no.32 Via Soccini. The comune bought it from private hands in 1839. Above the balcony is a Borghesi family coat of arms. Also a part of the facade is the date 1860, which commemorates the union of Tuscany with greater Italy under the Savoy monarchy.

Next on your right, at no.18 of the Via Soccini is the Palazzo Ricci Soccini and site of the Museo d’Arte Sacra della Val d’Arbia. One and a half centuries ago, owner Raffaello Ricci restored the eighteenth century palace in the new Liberty style under the guidance of architect Gino Chierici. The facade boasts many characteristic features of the Italian Art Nouveau, exemplified by the contrast in colors of stone, brick, and strips of ceramic tiles in floral motifs that divide the building into horizontal courses. The classical windows on the first floor are ornamented with highly decorative ironworking. The balustrade on the second floor terrace echoes that theme, before the third floor returns to its classical roots. Elements of the Liberty style continue inside on the first and second floors, the staircase, and the bathrooms, reason enough for admission to the museum.

The Museo d’Arte Sacra della Val d’Arbia inside is well worth a visit as it is among the better small art museums in Tuscany, but delightfully free of crowds, an opportunity to view the art unencumbered and in the local context where it was produced. The museum boasts a series of masterpieces by artists of the Sienese school, collected from small churches all around the Val d’Arbia. Among the most precious are a Madonna and Child by Duccio da Buoninsegna and another by Pietro Lorenzetti. One room is dedicated to works of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, representing artists including Bartoleomeo di David and Francesco Vanni. Many works highlight the greatness of the Sienese school in the 1500s, with artists Rutilio Manetti and Bernardino Mei among others.

Open Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday from 10-12, Saturday from 2-4, and Sunday from 9-1. 0577.809075
Further on your right sits somber facade of the eighteenth century Palazzo del Traja at number 8, whose iron balcony rings the corner it makes with the Chiesa dei Santi Pietro e Paolo (church.) The 1103 on the church’s facade might refer to the date of its founding. As a church on the important Via Francigena pilgrimage route, it received many a great work of art, including oeuvres by Duccio and Sano di Pietro. These have all been moved to the nearby art museum for safekeeping. What rests is a fifteenth century table decorated in tempera by Matteo di Giovanni, another by Pietro di Francesco Orioli, and a fresco by Sano di Pietro showing the coronation of the Virgin. The facade as we see it today was restored in a classical style from 1702 to 1705, and decorated in travertine in 1723. The bell tower was restored in the early 1800s.

Across from the Palazzo dei Traja sits the Palazzo Borghesi which dates to the fourteenth century. Legend had it that Emperor Henry VII died here, although subsequent research confirms he breathed his last in the church across the way. Occupying space in the ground floor of he Palazzo is the Oratorio of Saint Sebastian belonging to the historic order, the Contrafraternity of the Misericordia, whose roots in Buonconvento date to 1595, although they officially joined the order in devotion to emergency assistance in 1865. Entrance to their museum at this site, which offers a glimpse into the organizations private space, art collection, and antique emergency response equipment, is free but must be booked in advance: 348/7072500 The Oratorio’s fourteenth century style was restored at the turn of the nineteenth century. Its exceptional acoustics make it host to musical events planned by the Accademia Chigiana.

Continue a few more steps and you reach the porta Senese, the doorway to Siena, and a part of the walls provided by Siena in 1379. One coat of arms represents Siena, the other, Buonconvento. The wooden fittings of the gothic arch are original, untouched until their restoration in 1998. The battlements are in the Geulf style.

Just outside the door is a public garden and fountain, and to the right, the entrance to the Teatro dell’Accademia dei Risorti, which had been a horseshoe shaped theater with two rows of balconies in the classical style of eighteenth century Italy, when it was lost to bombardment in World War II. The newly restored theater was completed in 1976 and hosts special theatrical events and movies. The facing garden, the Monumento al Bersagliere is for soldiers in every war. The sculpture is the work of Sienese artist, Plinio Tammaro.

To continue right, circling the walls from the outside takes you to the doors of the Museo della Mezzadria Senese.

The Museo Etnografico della mezzadria is a quite exceptional museum offering a look at the old tenant farming system of the area. This becomes especially apt when you remember that Borgo Finocchieto refers to a village (borgo) based around the production of fennel (finocchio) whose roots are a staple vegetable to the Italian diet, and whose seeds stud the local salami. The mezzadria system operated based on a contract whereby the proprietor owned fifty percent of the production by peasant farmers living on the land. The system lasted well into the 1950s, when mechanization replaced many a job and droves of people abandoned farms for industrial jobs. The museum offers a video explaining the system, in Italian, but worth watching nonetheless, and various interactive features downstairs, where life size statues of farmers and proprietors tell you about life from their personal points of view. Displays highlight various aspects of the sharecropping life, from the harvest to special feasts and festivals. Upstairs, displays demonstrate the common living quarters of such farmers. This is a unique opportunity to witness what the very inside of Finocchieto might have looked like as few as fifty years ago. Open Thursday / Friday / Saturday / Sunday from 10 to 6.

Back inside the Porta Senese, turn left onto the Via del Sole to continue a tour of town. This road used to be called the Via degli Orti (of gardens) for its spaces devoted to grain, wine, and animals. Ahead is a carefully tended public garden with a well dating to 1857. To the left is the Piazza Arrigo VII (Henry VII), where the comune hosts various musical events and during the sagra, dancing.