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Niccola Pisano’s son, Giovanni, and pupil Arnolfo di Cambio helped create this masterpiece of Gothic carving. Similar to Pisano pulpits in Pisa and Pistoia, this one depicts scenes from the Life of Christ.

The library was built to house manuscripts belonging to the humanist Pope Pius II, born to Siena’s Piccolomini family. His life is celebrated in masterly frescoes (1507;) by Pinturicchio.

All 59 panels are on show in early autumn (usually September), but some are visible all year. From 1372 to 1547 Siena’s top artists created these scenes, including Pinturicchio and Matteo di Giovanni, whose Massacre of the Innocents is masterful.

Giovanni Pisano designed the façade in 1285. His original time-worn statues, replaced with copies, are in the Museo Metropolitana. The glittering mosaics decorating the top half are by 19th-century Venetian craftsmen.

Andrea Bregno’s 1480 marble altar incorporates a Madonna and Child (1397–1400) by Jacopo della Quercia and four small statues of saints (1501–4) by the young Michelangelo.

Baroque master Gian Lorenzo Bernini designed this chapel in 1659. The 13th-century Madonna del Volto altar-piece is Siena’s guardian: officials have placed the city keys before her in times of crisis, including during Nazi occupation, and Siena has always been delivered from harm.

Giovanni di Stefano’s Renaissance baptismal chapel (1492) is decorated with Pinturicchio frescoes and a bronze St John the Baptist (1457) by an ageing Donatello.

Italy’s earliest stained glass (1288) decorates the apse’s round window. Designed by Siena’s great early Gothic master Duccio di Buoninsegna, it underwent a thorough cleaning in the 1990s but should be back in place and gleaming by the time you visit.

The intarsia wood choir stalls are by various master craftsmen (1362–1570), the marble altar by Baldassare Peruzzi (1532) and the candelabras by Beccafumi, who also painted the apse fresco of the Ascension (1548–51).

The campanile was added only in 1313, but the design is pure Romanesque dramatic black-and-white stripes.