From the Latin bonus conventus, meaning felicitous or fortunate community: a happy congregation of people benefiting from the fruitfulness of the land and the advantages of the proximity of the Arbia and Ombrone rivers, as well as the excellent position on the important Via Francigena road. Here travelers found food and lodging. Buonconvento is 25 km from Siena, 145 meters above sea level, and covers a territory of about 65 square km. The Via Francigena passed along this main street, lined with the town's most important buildings. It is named for the Soccini family, originally from this area, some members of which were famous Sienese juriconsults. Other family members, religious reformers and contesters of certain Church doctrines, led a movement called "Socinianism"that spread to various parts of Europe.
Historic building in Buonconvento
The History
Surrounding Area
For art lovers, the countryside around Buonconvento offers interesting occasions. The Parish Church of Santa Innocenza in Piana is a fortified complex documented as far back as 1081. Vi1la di Piana boasts a residence that was one of the "granges" of Siena's historic Hospital. Castelrosi has an example of a Medieval fortified farm, partially restored in the 20th century. The XII century Castle of Bibbiano is enclosed within a compact ring Wall, and nearby is the castle-villa La Torre. Castelnuovo Tancredi offers an architectural complex: with a donjon, a 16th-century villa, a farmhouse and a church. Also interesting to visit are the farms of Chiatina, Armena, Casale Sergardi, Serravalle and Resta.
LIBERTY STYLE IN BUONCONVENTO
Buonconvento also means Liberty, a typically urban style that took hold here as well, putting the town on the map in the world of art and good taste. A unique example in the province of Siena, Liberty style here took a serene, refined form that played on materials, colors and decorative effects, in exteriors as well as in highly "floral" interior decorations consisting of frescoes, stained glass and wrought iron. Examples include Palazzo Ricci Socini, Palazzo Farnetani, Palazzo Ricci, the old Grisaldi del Taja preschool, Palazzina Sensi and Palazzina Castell8ni Bettarini, all located along Via Soccini, Via Roma and Via D.Alighieri. On the Cassia road heading towards Rome stands the Villa La Rondinella, another magnificent example of Liberty style, designed by the architect Gino Chierici.
Village of Buonconvento
The Municipality of Buonconvento
Province of Siena
Tuscany Region
inhabitants: 3.082 buonconventini
Altitude center: 147 m a.s.l.
The Municipality is part of:
I Borghi più belli d'Italia
City of chianina
Communes of the Via Francigena
Road of Wine Orcia
BY CAR
ON THE TRAIN
BY PLANE
A scam in a medieval tavern described by Boccaccio in the Decameron. A discussion between heretics. A floral and modernist twist on the facade of a house: fresh air among the dominant medieval forms. The color of terracotta, of red-brick, and of the Senesi crete, the clay hills dotted with farms and churches where the diamond white of the truffle born. The severity, the sweetness and the smile on the faces of the Madonnas painted by Sienese artists on tables and murals preserved in the Museum of Sacred Art. The products of a fertile country, pride of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany. The footsteps of the pilgrims echoing on the ancient Via Francigena. The color of crete in autumn, under a sky that never seems to end. An intimate corner of landscape: an old farm, a cypress, a curved white road. All this is Buonconvento and its territory. The strong thirteenth-century defense walls once enclosed the entire village. Even today, the road that crosses inside is devoted to the family that counted among its members a couple of heretics, who contested in the sixteenth century some church doctrines. Via Socciniè perhaps the noblest of the village, the one overlooked by the corridors of power and major landowners: The Podestarile building with the civic tower of the fourteenth century, the Town Hall with the beautiful brick front and the imposing palace of Taja family of the seventeenth-century. Be careful to pass through Via Oscura: you could enter the Middle Ages and never emerge.
Discover the other villages on the guide Tuscany - Villages to Love