Corso Rossellino

Corso Rossellino is the line on which Pienza's whole argument depends. Laid out in the fifteenth century as the new main road linking the gates of the old walls, it gathers cathedral, papal palaces, civic loggia and a surviving medieval church onto one axis of the UNESCO ideal city.

Why it matters

While largely respecting the medieval street plan, Pienza's Renaissance rebuilding established Corso Rossellino as the principal axis between the two main gates in the town walls. The street is a designed piece of Quattrocento urbanism and part of the first application of Renaissance humanist city planning, inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1996 for criteria (i), (ii) and (iv). The street expresses the ideal city as a planned whole rather than a collection of facades.

What to notice

The western gate, Porta al Murello or Porta al Prato, marks one end of the street. At its junction with Piazza Pio II stand the cathedral, the town hall loggia, Palazzo Piccolomini and Palazzo Borgia. The street's facades include Renaissance and later palazzi, artisan premises and the sandstone front of San Francesco, behind which medieval frescoes survive. It continues towards Porta al Ciglio and the road to Monticchiello. Nearby Via Gozzante retains elements of medieval Corsignano.

Context and history

The transformation of Corsignano ordered by Pius II after his election in 1458 unfolded along the road axis running from Porta al Prato to Porta al Ciglio. About forty public and private buildings were rebuilt or reworked in the campaign that began in 1459 under Bernardo Rossellino, the pupil of Leon Battista Alberti whose name the street now carries. The genius of the plan was restraint: rather than a new grid, it re-articulated an existing medieval line, monumentalising its centre around the new square and leaving the defensive frame in place. The campaign of 1459–1462 produced a street whose proportions continue to shape the town.