Palazzo Salimbeni: Historic Headquarters of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Modern
- Civilizations
- Italian, Republic of Siena
- Site type
- Civic
- Remains
- Palace
On this page16 sections
History
Palazzo Salimbeni is a historic Gothic building in Siena, Italy, and the headquarters of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena. It developed from a fortified urban compound of the Salimbeni family in the twelfth or thirteenth century and now forms the central architectural group of Piazza Salimbeni.
The Salimbeni fortress
The site began as the Salimbeni family’s fortress, also known as Rocca Salimbeni or Castellare Salimbeni. The family was powerful in medieval Siena, and its fortified compound was attached to the early medieval walls near the church of San Donato. Two popular uprisings led by members of the Salimbeni family, in 1264 and 1268, resulted in the destruction of the fortress. The family rebuilt it immediately afterward.
During the fourteenth century, the earlier compound was enlarged to create the palace. The building therefore combined the functions and fabric of a fortified family residence with the more extensive spaces of a civic and administrative complex.
Confiscation and civic offices
In 1419, after repeated attempts by the Salimbeni to seize power in Siena, the Republic of Siena expelled the family and confiscated its property, including the palace. Their Guelph allegiance, within the political divisions of medieval Italy, also contributed to the decision. The city subsequently installed a salt customs office and a tax-collection office in the building.
The palace’s connection with charitable finance began in 1472, when rooms were assigned to the Monte Pio, or Monte di Pietà. A Monte di Pietà was a charitable credit institution that lent money to people in need and sought to counter high-interest moneylending. The foundation document of the bank dates from February 1472, while its statutes date from 4 March of that year.
Monte dei Paschi and the nineteenth century
In 1866, the Monte Pio was incorporated into the Monte dei Paschi. The institution’s lending operations were secured by annual public revenues from the Maremma pastures administered by the Sienese state. Monte dei Paschi purchased Palazzo Salimbeni outright in the same year and made it its central headquarters. The bank, founded in Siena in 1472, claims to be the world’s oldest surviving bank.
Giuseppe Partini directed a major restoration and alteration campaign during the nineteenth century. The work began in 1877 and included restoration between 1883 and 1887. It gave the palace a neo-Gothic appearance inspired by fourteenth-century Siena. Some building volumes were demolished, others were raised, and new structures and historically styled finishes were introduced. The facade facing Piazza Salimbeni was altered in 1871 and again from 1877 to 1879, including an enlargement of the entrance area.
Carlo Ariotti and Vittorio Mariani carried out a further restoration in the twentieth century, when the buildings flanking the piazza were also altered. Palazzo Spannocchi, built by Giuliano da Maiano between 1473 and 1476, and Palazzo Tantucci, also called Palazzo Tantucci alla Dogana and built by Bartolomeo Neroni in 1570, form part of the associated group. Partini restored and altered all three buildings in the nineteenth century.
Modern reorganization
In 1959, Monte dei Paschi decided to reorganize its historic headquarters and commissioned Pierluigi Spadolini to direct a comprehensive restoration and rearrangement. Work took place from 1963 to 1972 and continued with further interventions in the late 1970s. It followed archival research directed by Giovanni Padalino, together with examinations of the walls and foundations. A commission chaired by Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli and the local heritage superintendent supervised and discussed the project.
Spadolini’s intervention aimed to preserve the original structures wherever possible. It reorganized the central staircase, study rooms, conference facilities, and facades facing the customs courtyard. Selected building volumes and a former neo-Gothic branch were demolished, a subterranean connection was made between the new branch and the treasury, and the foundations of the fondaco were consolidated. Older medieval fabric was exposed, and the former church of San Donato was restored as a conference hall and museum space.
Palazzo Salimbeni now contains the bank’s headquarters, historical archive, general management, offices, representative rooms, conference facilities, the Fondazione Monte dei Paschi, and an art gallery. The archive preserves documents connected with the history of Siena and Monte dei Paschi, including the 1340 Contratto Sansedoni, the bank’s foundation charter and statutes from 1472, debtor lists from 1545, balance sheets from 1570, payment orders for artists, and the original 1629 death sentence of Armenio Melari, who served as the bank’s treasurer from 1602 to 1622. It also contains records of financial support for the Italian wars of independence in 1860, letters from Giuseppe Garibaldi dated 1875, and a 1928 loan authorization for Luigi Pirandello.
Remains
Palace and medieval fabric
Palazzo Salimbeni is a Gothic Sienese building whose later neo-Gothic alterations reproduce features associated with fourteenth-century Siena. Its exterior includes three-light windows beneath pointed arches, battlements, and a continuous row of blind arches. The rear facade, approached from Via dell’Abbadia, is built of brick or terracotta masonry and lies between two substantial towers. This side preserves the clearest medieval evidence, including one of the two original ancient towers and the original Fondaco dei Salimbeni, a historical commercial or storage building.
The palace faces Banchi di Sopra, part of the Via Francigena, the medieval pilgrimage and travel route linking northern Europe with Rome and other Italian destinations. Piazza Salimbeni lies in Siena’s Terzo di Camollia district and is regarded, like Piazza del Campo and the cathedral square, as neutral contrada territory rather than belonging to the surrounding contrade of Lupa, Bruco, or Drago. A monument to Sallustio Bandini, created by Tito Sarrocchi in 1882, stands at the center of the piazza. Bandini was a Sienese clergyman, economist, and political thinker.
Courtyards, entrances, and internal organization
The palace, fortress, and associated buildings are divided into distinct functional areas. The Tantucci, Spannocchi, and Ranieri Salimbeni palaces contain offices and general management. The central section and fortress include representative rooms and the large Rocca hall for conferences. The former weapons hall houses the historical archive, while the Peruzziana Gallery serves as a passage area. The fondaco functions as an entrance, and the area behind it contains the picture gallery.
Staircases and customs courtyard
Spadolini created a new staircase where Palazzo Spannocchi, the fondaco, and the Salimbeni building meet, linking different groups of offices. A reinforced-concrete spiral staircase was also placed against the exposed ancient Salimbeni tower. The former customs courtyard was cleared during the same works, revealing the old facade and the superimposed arches of the gallery known as the Peruzziana or Peruzzi Gallery. The Salimbeni building received a new brick facade, while the old fondaco and the large entrance room were restored.
San Donato and the Peruzziana Gallery
The former church of San Donato stood on the site about a century before the palace was built and remained active until the fourteenth century. Its restored interior now serves as a conference hall and museum space for the bank’s picture collection. The Peruzziana Gallery, begun in 1902 with frescoes by Gaetano Brunacci and completed in 1908 by Carlo Bovini and Vittorio Zani, contains scenes of Sienese figures, including bank directors, their wives, and other prominent people. Brunacci also included prostitutes and people described as mad, reportedly placing them near the directors’ wives, a choice said to have contributed to his replacement.
Art collection
The bank’s collection concentrates on Sienese art from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century, with a smaller group of contemporary works including Valerio Adami’s Allegoria del Monte dei Paschi. The rooms contain works by Pietro Lorenzetti, Sassetta, Jacopo della Quercia, Sano di Pietro, Domenico Beccafumi, Bartolomeo Neroni, Francesco Vanni, Rutilio Manetti, Francesco Rustici, Bernardino Mei, and Alessandro Franchi.
Fondaco and Rocca rooms
The Seconda Sala del Fondaco contains Bernardino Mei’s Artemisia, Widow of King Mausolus, Drinking Tears Mixed with the Ashes of Her Deceased Husband, an oil painting of about 1654, and Francesco Rustici’s Wisdom and Prudence, painted about 1620. The Salone della Rocca contains Arcangelo Salimbeni’s Lamentation over the Dead Christ, an oil on canvas made about 1576 to 1577 and measuring 200 by 140 centimetres, together with Benedetto da Maiano’s marble Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist, made about 1490.
The same rooms and adjoining spaces include Antonio Federighi’s marble Bacchus, made about 1465 and originating from Palazzo d’Elci; Raffaello Vanni’s Neoptolemus Killing Polyxena, an oil on canvas of 1650 measuring 210 by 473 centimetres; Francesco di Giorgio’s terracotta Saint Anthony the Abbot, made about 1490 to 1500; Bernardino Fungai’s Saint Anthony of Padua and Saint Mary Magdalene; and Domenico Manetti’s Ulysses Snatching the Child Astyanax from Andromache, an oil on canvas of about 1654.
Sala del Vanni
The Sala del Vanni contains Carlo Bononi’s The Samaritan Woman at the Well and Andrea del Brescianino’s Saint Mary Magdalene, an oil painting on canvas of about 1515. Other works include Francesco Vanni’s Christ in Pity Supported by the Virgin, an oil painting on wood measuring 51.5 by 42 centimetres; Ventura Salimbeni’s Deposition, painted on wood about 1600 and measuring 34 by 25.5 centimetres; Francesco di Valdambrino’s wooden Blessing Christ Child, made about 1409; and Domenico Beccafumi’s Saint Lucy, painted about 1521 and measuring 55 by 38 centimetres.
Sala del Palio
The Sala del Palio contains five oil paintings depicting the Palio di Siena, the city’s historic horse race and civic festival associated with its contrade. Vincenzo Rustici’s Bull Hunt in Piazza del Campo and Procession of the Contrade in Piazza del Campo were made about 1585. Giuseppe Zocchi’s daytime and nighttime views represent an extraordinary Palio and its torchlit procession in April 1739, held for the arrival of Grand Duke Francis I of Lorraine and Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria. The Drago contrada won the race. Francesco Nenci’s Historical Procession of the Palio of 18 August 1833, made in 1849, also represents the wedding of Leopold II and Maria Antonia.
Sala San Donato
The Sala San Donato contains works associated with fourteenth- and fifteenth-century art. They include Sano di Pietro’s Lamentation over the Dead Christ with the Madonna, Saint Francis, Saint Anthony of Padua, and Two Angels, dated 1481; the Master of the Osservanza’s Virgin’s Lament over the Deposed Christ, the Donor Peter Volckammer, and Saint Sinibald, made about 1432; and Giovanni di Paolo’s Madonna and Child, also called the Madonna dei Vetturini, made about 1450.
The room also displays Stefano di Giovanni Sassetta’s Saint Anthony the Abbot, made about 1430; Priamo della Quercia’s Saint Anthony the Abbot and Saint James the Greater, made about 1420 and later transferred from wood to canvas; and Pietro Lorenzetti’s Saint Stephen, made about 1330.
Sala Tino di Camaino and the archive
Named for Tino di Camaino, the Sala Tino di Camaino displays Alessandro Casolani’s Madonna and Child, made about 1603 to 1604; Rutilio Manetti’s Saint Jerome Comforted by Two Angels, dated 1628; and Tino di Camaino’s triptych of the Madonna and Child, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, and Saint John the Baptist, made about 1335 to 1336.
The historical archive preserves the 1340 Contratto Sansedoni, a parchment plan showing the layout of Palazzo Sansedoni in Piazza del Campo. It is kept with the bank’s foundation documents, administrative books, seals, financial records, correspondence, and records of payments to artists, linking the palace’s institutional history with the wider documentary and artistic history of Siena.
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