Panorama dal Facciatone

The Facciatone is the surviving front of Siena’s unfinished Duomo Nuovo, an ambitious fourteenth-century plan to enlarge the cathedral. Its striped marble façade now frames views across the city, while its unfinished fabric preserves the story of a project halted by plague, financial strain and structural problems.

Why it matters

Work to extend the cathedral’s east end began in 1317. In 1339 Siena’s Grand Council approved a much larger scheme: the existing cathedral would become the transept of a new nave extending across what is now Piazza Jacopo della Quercia. The expansion would have transformed the scale of the cathedral and the surrounding piazza. After unsafe sections were demolished in 1357, the surviving façade remained as a fragment of the project.

What to notice

The wall’s two faces preserve different intentions. Toward the city, white and dark marble bands and three tall arches give it the appearance of an exterior façade; toward Piazza Jacopo della Quercia, brickwork was intended to face the interior of the new church. The central portal was later walled up. Nearby side walls and the northeast nave arcades show how far the planned expansion reached. From the upper loggias, the cathedral’s campanile, the Piazza del Campo and the Sienese hills form a broad panorama.

Context and history

Andrea Dei’s chronicle records the laying of the first stone for the new façade on 2 February 1339. The Grand Council approved the expansion on 23 August of that year, by 212 votes to 132. Lando di Pietro directed the works until his death in 1340, followed by Giovanni d’Agostino, who died during the plague of 1348. The combination of plague, financial pressure and structural problems brought the project to an end; in June 1357, the city ordered the demolition of unsafe sections. The Facciatone remains a record of Siena’s unfinished cathedral plan.