SELECTED TOPICS IN ARCHITECTURE | Pienza: Born of a Dream of Beauty

The small Tuscan town of Pienza is often considered the first ideally planned city of the Renaissance. It had been a small agricultural town, known as Corsignano, until its most famous son, Pope Pius II, decided it needed a reboot to properly reflect its status as birthplace of a pope.

In this talk, Zaloga will look at the town’s idyllic location, crowning a gentle hill in the rolling Val d’Orcia, a landscape that was much beloved of the pope, and the exquisitely designed buildings, exploring what makes them beautiful and how their relationships with each other and with the people of this town makes this an “ideal city.”