Piazza Grande

Piazza Grande gathers Montepulciano's cathedral, crenellated town hall tower, Renaissance palaces and a well designed by Antonio da Sangallo.

Why it matters

Most Tuscan hill towns keep their monuments scattered along a ridge; Montepulciano arranged its civic, religious and family power on one compact stage. On Piazza Grande the cathedral, the Palazzo Comunale with its crenellated tower, the palaces of the town's leading families and Sangallo's carved well stand close together, expressing the ambitions of Renaissance Montepulciano. A central scene of the film New Moon was shot here.

What to notice

The Duomo of Santa Maria Assunta, built between 1586 and 1680 to a design by Ippolito Scalza, remains unfinished: its facade and the upper section of the bell tower are incomplete. Its interior includes Taddeo di Bartolo's Assumption triptych, Michelozzo's funeral monument to Bartolomeo Aragazzi and a glazed terracotta by Andrea della Robbia.

Opposite rises the Palazzo Comunale, its Gothic facade cut in travertine, crowned by a crenellated tower. The tower's upper level overlooks the Valdichiana and Val d'Orcia.

At the centre of the square stands the Pozzo dei Grifi e dei Leoni, a carved sixteenth-century well designed by Antonio da Sangallo. Palazzo Contucci also faces the square, with historic cellars beneath the building.

Context and history

The square took its present shape when Montepulciano's governing families rebuilt the summit as a coherent stage for church and commune, replacing an older, looser arrangement with architecture meant to impress. Scalza's cathedral, begun in 1586, replaced an earlier church and remained unfinished, a condition the town has kept rather than corrected. Sangallo, in town during those years to direct work on the Tempio di San Biagio, drew the well that still anchors the paving. The square has long held a central role in Montepulciano's civic life.