Museo Diocesano di Pienza
Tucked into the Bishop's Palace beside the cathedral, this small diocesan museum holds a collection wildly out of proportion to the size of the town — including a set of embroidered Flemish copes that once belonged to Pope Pius II himself. Most visitors walk straight past the door.
The Papal Vestments and Flemish Textiles
The star objects are four embroidered wool-and-silk copes dating from around 1460, woven in Flanders and gifted to Pius II. The narrative scenes stitched into the orphreys — depicting the Life of the Virgin and the Apostles — are so finely worked they resemble oil paintings in thread, and they survive in extraordinary condition.
Scholars of medieval textile history travel specifically to Pienza to study these pieces, yet on a typical Tuesday afternoon you may find yourself entirely alone with them, which is a genuinely strange and wonderful feeling.
Paintings and Sacred Objects
The museum also holds a Madonna and Child attributed to Pietro Lorenzetti, a painted crucifix from the 13th century, and a reliquary bust of extraordinary goldsmith work that was part of Pius II's personal treasury.
The building itself — the Palazzo Borgia, later Palazzo Vescovile — has a loggia with a view over the Val d'Orcia that rivals the more famous belvedere next door, and is almost always empty of other visitors.
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