Casa Santuario di Santa Caterina

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Catherine of Siena was born in a dyer's house below Fontebranda in 1347. It is now a shrine of oratories and chapels layered over the family home — free to enter, and a five-minute walk downhill from San Domenico.

Status: Roman Catholic sanctuary (rettoria of the Arcidiocesi di Siena) built around the birthplace of St Catherine of Siena; managed with the Associazione Internazionale dei Caterinati.

At a Glance

The Casa Santuario di Santa Caterina occupies the house on the steep Costa di Sant’Antonio where Caterina Benincasa was born in 1347, the daughter of a cloth-dyer, in the Fontebranda district within the Contrada dell’Oca. After her canonisation the family house was bought by the commune and progressively turned into a shrine of interlocking oratories, a church and a portico, richly decorated between the 15th and 20th centuries. It sits just downhill and west of the Basilica di San Domenico, which holds her relics. Admission is free.

Setting and Location

The sanctuary lies on the steep Costa di Sant’Antonio, on the flank of the Fontebranda valley, a short walk below San Domenico. The house belonged to the wool-workers’ guild district; the Fontebranda spring immediately below supplied both the city and the Benincasa dye-works. The entrance is through the 20th-century Portico dei Comuni; from there the complex tumbles down the hillside on several levels, so a visit involves steps and slopes.

• Contrada: the Contrada dell’Oca, whose own oratory (the former dye-works) forms part of the Catherinian sites here.
• Nearby: Fontebranda fountain (rebuilt 1246); Basilica di San Domenico uphill; Via di Santa Caterina and the Costone escalator.

Did you know? The Contrada dell’Oca’s oratory occupies the very rooms Catherine’s father used as his dye-works; today it holds a wooden statue of the saint of 1475 attributed to Neroccio di Bartolomeo (Neroccio di Landi) and frescoes by Il Sodoma and others.

History

Caterina Benincasa was born on 25 March 1347 (a date given consistently by Church and biographical sources, though her exact birth year is not documented from a contemporary record) in the Fontebranda district, one of the youngest of the many children — traditionally the 23rd or 24th of 25 — of the dyer Jacopo Benincasa and his wife Lapa Piagenti; she had a twin sister, Giovanna, who died in infancy. The family home doubled as house and dye-warehouse.

After the Benincasa family declined the house passed to another dyer, until in 1466 — five years after Catherine’s canonisation in 1461 by the Sienese Pope Pius II — the Comune di Siena bought it at the urging of Fontebranda residents who wanted their saint’s home kept open for veneration. A lay confraternity dedicated to Catherine already existed (it had acquired the dye-works oratory in 1464), and over the following centuries the confraternity and the flow of offerings turned the house into a shrine, building oratories and commissioning cycles of paintings.

• The oldest loggia/atrium is attributed to Baldassarre Peruzzi or his circle, c. 1530; another loggia was raised in 1550 by Giovan Battista Pelori.
• The Chiesa del Crocifisso was built 1614–1623 over the family’s former garden to house the stigmata crucifix.
• The Portico dei Comuni d’Italia, at the entrance, was begun in 1941 (after Catherine’s 1939 proclamation as patron of Italy) and finished in 1947, funded by symbolic contributions — “one brick” — from Italian municipalities; it replaced the demolished church of Sant’Antonio Abate.
• The cell (Oratory of the Bedroom) was remodelled in 1874 and frescoed by Alessandro Franchi with Gaetano Marinelli in 1896.

Did you know? Every comune in Italy contributed the symbolic cost of a single brick toward the entrance portico — which is why it is called the “Portico of the Municipalities.”

The Complex, Room by Room

Verify current access on site; some spaces (notably the Oca oratory) open only occasionally.

• Portico dei Comuni d’Italia (1941–47): the monumental entrance; note the fine travertine well of c. 1500 on the right, the only ancient element, and the busts of popes connected with Catherine.
• Oratorio della Cucina (Kitchen Oratory): built over the Benincasa kitchen, with a 16th-century polychrome maiolica-tiled floor (now protected by a raised transparent walkway). Above the altar is Bernardino Fungai’s altarpiece of 1496 showing Catherine receiving the stigmata; the walls carry canvases by Cristoforo Roncalli (Pomarancio), Pietro Sorri, Alessandro Casolani, Bartolomeo Neroni (Riccio) and Francesco Vanni (his Canonisation of St Catherine, 1600, in the great niche). The blue-and-gold coffered ceiling was carved by Bastiano di Girolamo to Riccio’s design.
• Oratorio della Camera (Oratory of the Bedroom): reached by stairs down from the atrium; it encloses the small cubicle where Catherine prayed and rested, with the stone she used as a pillow behind an iron grille. The oldest work here is Girolamo di Benvenuto’s panel of Catherine receiving the stigmata (early 16th century); the walls were frescoed by Alessandro Franchi (1896).
• Oratorio del Crocifisso / Chiesa del Crocifisso: the Baroque church (1614–1623) built to house the 12th–13th-century crucifix of the Pisan school before which Catherine is said to have received the stigmata at Santa Cristina in Pisa on 1 April 1375. The crucifix was brought to Siena in 1565 and placed on the high altar in 1623. The church holds canvases by Sebastiano Conca, Rutilio Manetti (his St Catherine receiving the stigmata, 1630), Rutilio and Domenico Manetti (1638), and dome frescoes by Giuseppe Nicola Nasini (1701–03).
• Oratorio di Santa Caterina in Fontebranda (Oratorio dell’Oca): the former dye-works, today the oratory of the Contrada dell’Oca, with the Neroccio wooden statue and frescoes by Sodoma, Girolamo del Pacchia, Pacchiarotti, Vincenzo Tamagni, Ventura Salimbeni and Sebastiano Folli; acquired by the contrada in 1464 and usually not open to casual visitors.
• Confessional Chapel (2006): a modern chapel with a fresco cycle by the Sienese artist Ezio Pollai.

Did you know? The kitchen oratory’s Fungai altarpiece shows the stigmata crucifix as a carved sculpture rather than the painted panel it actually is — because when Fungai painted it in 1496 the real crucifix was still in Pisa and few Sienese had ever seen it.

Catherine’s Life and Significance

Despite little formal schooling, Catherine became one of the most influential figures of 14th-century Europe: a mystic, a prolific letter-writer, and the author of the Dialogo della Divina Provvidenza. She received the habit of the Dominican Third Order (the Mantellate) as a young woman and lived a consecrated life within the world rather than in a convent.

• She is said to have received the stigmata in Pisa on 1 April 1375 (recognised only in 1623 by Urban VIII).
• Her most celebrated political achievement was persuading Pope Gregory XI to return the papacy from Avignon to Rome in 1377, ending the so-called Avignon captivity.
• She supported Urban VI at the outbreak of the Western Schism in 1378.
• She died in Rome on 29 April 1380, aged 33.

Did you know? Catherine dictated most of her hundreds of letters and her Dialogue rather than writing them herself, and her Tuscan prose is important enough that she is counted among the founders of Italian vernacular literature.

Practical Information

• Opening hours: we do not print a time here, deliberately. The complex is normally open daily, but no official source publishes its hours — the Associazione Internazionale dei Caterinati, which runs the site, gives none, and the sanctuary's own pages carry none either, which we confirmed directly on 13 August 2026. The figures circulating on travel portals disagree with each other by hours and by whether there is a midday closure. Telephone +39 0577 280801 before setting out, particularly if the visit is time-critical.
• Admission: free; donations welcomed. Not ticketed.
• Mass (confirmed, Arcidiocesi di Siena): weekdays 06:55 and 18:30; Saturday/vigil 18:30; Sundays and feasts 11:00 and 18:30.
• Accessibility: the sanctuary is built into a steep slope and is reached by descending steps from the entrance courtyard, with further stairs between levels down to the cell; it is difficult for visitors with limited mobility and largely not step-free.
• Walking route from Piazza del Campo: about 12–15 minutes on foot, descending west via Via di Città and Via di Santa Caterina toward Fontebranda; the return is uphill.
• Walking route from San Domenico: about 5 minutes downhill via Via Camporegio / Costa di Sant’Antonio.
• Dress code: modest dress required; this is an active place of worship.
• Photography: generally permitted without flash in the courtyards; not allowed in the most sacred spaces (the stigmata crucifix and the cell).

Sources: santacaterina.siena.it (Arcidiocesi di Siena); Visit Siena / Comune di Siena (visitsiena.it); Arcidiocesi di Siena (arcidiocesi.siena.it); Associazione Internazionale dei Caterinati (caterinati.org); Ministero della Cultura (cultura.gov.it); italia.it; Touring Club Italiano; Italian Wikipedia and Cathopedia.

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