Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena: Closed, and Where Its Art Is Now

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Italy's foremost collection of Sienese gold-ground painting has been shut since 26 January 2026 for PNRR works, with no reopening date announced. This is what is closed, what has opened in its place, and when each of those sites is actually open.

Status: State museum of the Ministero della Cultura, part of the autonomous Musei Nazionali di Siena.

At a Glance

The Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena holds the most important collection of Sienese panel painting from the 13th to the 17th century, from Duccio and Simone Martini to Beccafumi and Sodoma, in two adjoining Gothic palaces on Via San Pietro. Critical update: the Pinacoteca has been fully closed to the public since 26 January 2026 for PNRR-funded works on energy efficiency and accessibility, following an earlier partial closure of the second floor from August 2025. During the closure the collection is not on display, but the Musei Nazionali di Siena have opened several other city sites in compensation.

Setting and Buildings

The museum occupies two linked medieval palaces on Via San Pietro, in the quiet Terzo di Città south-west of the Campo. The principal building is the Palazzo Bichi-Buonsignori, a 15th-century Gothic palace; the museum also extends into the adjoining Palazzo Pannilini-Brigidi (14th century), traditionally linked to the Pannocchieschi family. A 2022 restoration of the Buonsignori façade found that its Gothic front — long thought to be a 19th-century neo-medieval reconstruction echoing the Palazzo Pubblico — is in fact largely original. A Renaissance courtyard with a porticoed cistern lies behind the entrance.

Did you know? The museum’s first scholarly arrangement and 1933 catalogue were the work of Cesare Brandi, later world-famous as the founder of modern restoration theory and of Rome’s Istituto Centrale del Restauro.

History of the Collection

The nucleus of the collection was assembled in the late 18th century (roughly 1750–1810) by two Sienese scholar-abbots, Giuseppe Ciaccheri and Luigi De Angelis, who rescued gold-ground panels and polyptychs from suppressed convents, decayed churches and lay confraternities. These works formed the Galleria dell’Accademia, attached to the Accademia di Belle Arti.

• Through the 19th century the collection grew by deposit and donation, notably paintings from the Spedale di Santa Maria della Scala and the Spannocchi-Piccolomini collection (over 150 works, given in 1835, including northern-Italian and northern-European pictures).
• It passed to civic then provincial ownership (Galleria Provinciale delle Belle Arti), and in 1930 was transferred to the State.
• In 1932 it opened as the Regia Pinacoteca (later Pinacoteca Nazionale) in the Buonsignori and Brigidi palaces.
• Since a 2021 decree the Pinacoteca has been an autonomous institute heading the Musei Nazionali di Siena.

Did you know? Some of the north-European highlights arrived almost by accident: the Spannocchi collection’s core came in large part from the ducal Gonzaga collection of Mantua, which is how a Dürer ended up in a museum of Sienese painting.

Current Status (2026) — Read Before Planning a Visit

The Pinacoteca Nazionale is closed to the public. Closure began on 26 January 2026 for the most intensive phase of a PNRR-funded programme of energy-efficiency and accessibility (barrier-removal) works; a first phase, dismantling the second-floor display, had already begun on 21 August 2025. No reopening date has been published — re-confirmed on the museum's own site on 13 August 2026, which still reads "La Pinacoteca è attualmente chiusa per lavori." The collection is not currently on public display, and works have been taken down for the works and, in part, lent out.

During the closure the Musei Nazionali di Siena have opened compensating sites:

• Palazzo Chigi Piccolomini alla Postierla (Via del Capitano 1): Thursday–Saturday 09:00–19:00, and Monday, Sunday and holidays 09:00–13:30; €4 full / €2 reduced (card payment only). Not accessible to visitors with disabilities.
• Chiesa di Santa Maria delle Nevi (Via dei Montanini 7/A): free, Tuesdays 09:00–19:00 (holidays excluded).
• Chiesa del “Santuccio” / Santa Maria degli Angeli (Via Roma 69): free, Wednesdays 09:00–19:00 (holidays excluded).
• Eremo di San Leonardo al Lago: Tuesday–Sunday 09:30–15:30, closed Mondays and holidays.
• Villa Brandi (Vignano): by obligatory booking, in timed slots — Tuesday, Friday and the first, third and fifth Sunday of the month at 09:00, 10:30 and 12:00; Thursday and Saturday at 14:00, 15:30 and 17:00.
• The Museo Archeologico Nazionale at Santa Maria della Scala is open as normal.

Separately, the Santa Maria della Scala complex has re-hung its own rooms around Vecchietta (from October 2025), so some Sienese masterpieces can still be seen in the city even while the Pinacoteca is shut.

Did you know? The current works are aimed above all at removing architectural barriers — a recurring problem in a museum spread across two medieval palaces, where the visitor route historically began on the top floors and worked downward.

The Collection

When open, the museum presents an almost continuous chronological survey of the Sienese School. The following are among its best-known holdings; because of the rehang and closure, confirm the display location of any specific work before relying on seeing it.

• 13th century: Guido da Siena (including a large Maestà and narrative panels); the Paliotto del Salvatore by the Maestro di Tressa (1215).
• Duccio di Buoninsegna: the celebrated small Madonna dei Francescani (traditionally shown in Room 4) and works from his circle.
• Simone Martini: the Madonna della Misericordia (Madonna of Mercy) and a Madonna and Child of debated attribution.
• Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti: including Ambrogio’s two tiny panels, the “Città sul mare” (City by the Sea), 22.5 × 33.5 cm, and the “Castello in riva a un lago” (Castle on a Lakeshore), 22.5 × 33 cm, both tempera on panel.
• 15th century: Sassetta, Giovanni di Paolo, Sano di Pietro, Matteo di Giovanni, Vecchietta, Francesco di Giorgio Martini.
• 16th–17th century (first floor): Domenico Beccafumi (the museum is the reference collection for his work, including his St Catherine receiving the stigmata between SS Benedict and Jerome, 1513–15) and Il Sodoma, plus later Sienese painters Francesco Vanni, Rutilio Manetti and Bernardino Mei.
• Spannocchi-Piccolomini collection (top floor): non-Sienese works including Albrecht Dürer and Lorenzo Lotto.

On the “earliest pure landscapes” claim: Ambrogio’s two little panels are very frequently described as the first autonomous landscapes in Western painting. This is a real and long-standing view (Brandi 1933; Carli 1981), but it is contested on two fronts. Their original function is debated — they may be fragments of a larger lost work, or the doors of a cupboard, or connected to the lost rotating mappamondo in the Palazzo Pubblico. Their attribution and date are also disputed: long given to Ambrogio Lorenzetti, they were at one time downgraded to an anonymous early-15th-century hand, and the Catalogo generale dei Beni Culturali records that “Federico Zeri, in 1973, hypothesised that they were two landscapes from the main panel of the Arte della Lana polyptych (1424)” — a thesis it notes “has become increasingly corroborated over time.” The description “first pure landscape” is therefore best presented as a celebrated but unsettled claim.

Did you know? The two panels are so small that both together would fit on a single sheet of A3 paper, yet they carry an outsize art-historical reputation as possibly the first landscapes painted for their own sake in Europe.

Practical Information

• Current status (2026): closed for PNRR renovation from 26 January 2026; no published reopening date. Do not plan a visit expecting to see the collection; check the official site first.
• Opening hours when open (for reference): Tuesday–Saturday 08:15–19:15; Sunday, Monday and holidays 09:00–13:00; closed 25 December and 1 January. Ticket office closes 30 minutes before.
• Admission when open (for reference): €8 full, €2 reduced; free on the first Sunday of the month (#DomenicaAlMuseo). Reductions and free entry per Italian state-museum rules.
• Accessibility: improving step-free access is the explicit aim of the current works; historically the two-palazzo layout with a lift of limited reach made full access difficult. Contact mn-si.comunicazione@cultura.gov.it for current provision.
• Walking route from Piazza del Campo: about 8–10 minutes on foot south-west via Via di Città and Via San Pietro.
• Walking route from the Duomo: about 5 minutes via Via del Capitano and Via San Pietro.
• ZTL / parking: the museum is inside the ZTL; use the Santa Caterina car park and the Costone escalator (near Fontebranda), which rises toward the Duomo a few minutes from Via San Pietro.
• Photography: hand-held photography without flash is generally permitted in the state museum; confirm on reopening.

Sources: Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena official site (pinacotecanazionalesiena.it), VISITA and EVENTI pages; Ministero della Cultura (cultura.gov.it); Catalogo generale dei Beni Culturali (catalogo.beniculturali.it); Treccani (Enciclopedia); Comune di Siena (comune.siena.it); Santa Maria della Scala (santamariadellascala.com); Visit Tuscany (visittuscany.com); Terre di Siena (terredisiena.it).

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