Sant'Agostino

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An Augustinian church beside the Prato di Sant'Agostino holding a Perugino, a Sodoma and a Lorenzetti — and opening only intermittently, which is the single most important thing to know before walking there.

Status (checked 5 August 2026): Not regularly open to visitors. Under restoration; used mainly for summer concerts and occasional guided visits. Confirm access before travelling.

At a Glance

The Chiesa di Sant’Agostino stands on the tree-lined Prato di Sant’Agostino, on the high southern edge of Siena’s Terzo di Città. Founded by the Augustinian friars in the 13th century, it was gutted by fire in 1747 and given a luminous white interior by Luigi Vanvitelli. It holds one of the richest concentrations of Sienese and Italian painting in the city, though several of its most famous works have long since been dispersed to the Pinacoteca Nazionale, to Santa Maria della Scala and to museums abroad.

Location and Setting

Sant’Agostino occupies the crown of a hill on the southern spur of Siena, within the Terzo di Città. Its plain brick bulk dominates the Prato di Sant’Agostino, a rare open, planted square inside the walls. The church and its former convent sit at the centre of a cluster of learned institutions: the adjoining ex-convent houses schools, and nearby stand the Accademia dei Fisiocritici, a music institute, and the University of Siena’s botanical garden.

• The Prato lies close to Porta Tufi, one of the southern gates through the medieval walls
• The church and Prato fall within the territory of the Contrada della Tartuca

Did you know? The Tartuca contrada traces part of its own identity to this church: chronicles record that a chapel here bore the contrada’s tortoise emblem, and its flag was once kept at the convent — all lost in the 1747 fire.

History

The Augustinians began building their church and convent in 1258, as the reformed order established itself in Siena alongside the Franciscans and Dominicans. Work continued for decades, with major enlargements in the 15th century. For five centuries the church accumulated altars, tombs and paintings, becoming one of the great mendicant churches of the city.

The turning point was a devastating fire in 1747. Luigi Vanvitelli — better known for the royal palace at Caserta — was engaged to rebuild the interior. He retained the great polychrome-marble altars of the 16th and 17th centuries but recast the whole space in a bright, classicising idiom, work completed by the middle of the following decade. The neoclassical entrance portico linking the church to the former convent was added by the Sienese architect Agostino Fantastici in 1819.

• Napoleonic suppression: the Augustinian convent was suppressed and put to secular use
• The adjacent convent later became the seat of the Collegio Tolomei
• The complex today serves as a secondary-school campus; the church remains consecrated

Did you know? The architect who rebuilt Sant’Agostino’s interior, Luigi Vanvitelli, was simultaneously at work on one of the largest palaces in Europe — the Reggia di Caserta near Naples.

Architecture

Externally the church is austere: a massive, largely unfinished brick structure whose facade is half-hidden behind Fantastici’s colonnaded neoclassical portico. The contrast on entering is deliberate. Vanvitelli’s single, wide nave is bright and white, its walls articulated by tall Corinthian pilasters and stucco statues, and lined with monumental polychrome-marble altars carrying painted altarpieces. The plan is a Latin cross with a single nave leading to transept and apse.

• Two family chapels preserve the church’s pre-fire past: the Cappella Piccolomini and the Cappella Bichi
• Surviving medieval fabric is fragmentary; most Gothic interior decoration was lost or hidden in the rebuilding

Did you know? Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s 14th-century Maesta fresco survives only by accident: when the Piccolomini family remodelled their chapel they built their heavy new altar hard against the fresco wall, hiding it — and so nobody troubled to destroy it. It was rediscovered in the 20th century.

Art

The single most celebrated work in situ is Perugino’s Crucifixion, the so-called Pala Chigi — commissioned by Marino Chigi in 1502 and delivered in 1506, and the only work by the Umbrian master in Siena. Its original predella of Stories of Christ is now divided between the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Art Institute of Chicago.

In the Cappella Piccolomini are Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Maesta fresco, the oldest work in the church, and Il Sodoma’s panel Adoration of the Magi. Elsewhere the nave altars carry a roll-call of late-Mannerist and Baroque painting: Francesco Vanni’s Baptism of Constantine, Pietro Sorri’s Trinity and Saints, Carlo Maratta’s Immaculate Conception, Giovanni Francesco Romanelli’s Adoration of the Shepherds, Astolfo Petrazzi’s Communion of St Jerome, Rutilio Manetti’s Temptation of St Anthony, and a Road to Calvary signed by Ventura Salimbeni with Alessandro Casolani.

The Cappella Bichi is the church’s great story of dispersal. Commissioned by Antonio Bichi from 1487, its decoration combined frescoes and a large altarpiece by Luca Signorelli and Francesco di Giorgio Martini. Monochrome frescoes by Francesco di Giorgio and two Sibyls by Signorelli survive in situ, rediscovered under later plaster. The altarpiece itself was dismembered and scattered — the scholarship (Borenius 1913; Ashley Elston, Hybridity in Early Modern Art, 2021) places the wings and predella in the Toledo Museum of Art, the Gemaldegalerie Berlin, the National Gallery of Ireland, Pollok House in Glasgow and the Clark Art Institute at Williamstown, with the central wooden St Christopher by Francesco di Giorgio in the Musee du Louvre.

Two other major works often associated with the church are no longer there:

• Simone Martini’s Blessed Agostino Novello Altarpiece, originally made for the friar’s tomb here, is now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena
• Matteo di Giovanni’s Massacre of the Innocents, painted for Sant’Agostino, is displayed at Santa Maria della Scala

Did you know? Signorelli’s Bichi panels of nude bathers were admired by later artists as anatomical studies in their own right; the two Toledo panels once formed the backdrop to a carved wooden St Christopher that now stands, separately, in the Louvre.

Current Status (2026)

Sant’Agostino is one of the Siena churches that is normally closed and opens only intermittently. Historically it has been included in the Archdiocese’s seasonal “Chiese Aperte” scheme, which opened it and other churches during the tourist season with free entry and custodians on duty.

The church is not on a regular tourist-opening footing in 2026. Following a reopening Mass in 2025, the city began restoration work covering the high altar and the in-situ restoration of the Perugino Crucifixion, the Maratta Immaculate Conception and the Sodoma altarpiece. Entry into the municipal museum circuit is a stated goal, not an accomplished fact, and access remains subject to specific request. Confirm the current position with the Comune di Siena before relying on it.

• In 2026 the church functions chiefly as a concert venue and for occasional guided visits
• Admission is free when opened under the diocesan schemes; concerts are separately ticketed
• Older listings advertising a regular May–October opening appear out of date

Did you know? The Chigiana International Festival has used the vast Vanvitelli nave as a concert hall, opening its summer season inside the church.

Practical Information

Checked 5 August 2026.

Opening hours. No reliable fixed hours. Always confirm before visiting, through the Comune di Siena, the Archdiocese or the ticketing office that operates the “Chiese Aperte” scheme.

Admission. Free entry when open under the diocesan schemes. Concerts are separately ticketed.

Accessibility. The working entrance is a modest doorway in the great brick side wall facing the Prato rather than the main portico. The Prato is on high ground reached by sloping streets; the approach from the Campo is uphill.

Walking route from Piazza del Campo. About 12–15 minutes, climbing south via Via di Città and Via di San Pietro, passing the Pinacoteca Nazionale, up to the Prato. From the Duomo, about 7–10 minutes.

ZTL and parking. The historic centre is a restricted-traffic zone; do not drive in without authorisation. Use peripheral car parks — Santa Caterina and Il Campo with escalator links, or the Porta Tufi and Il Duomo car parks, which are closest to this southern edge.

Best times to visit. During a confirmed opening period or in conjunction with a concert or guided visit.

Dress code. Modest dress covering shoulders and knees. Photography: non-flash generally tolerated where the church is open; not during services or concerts.

Planning notes

• Do not build a visit around fixed opening hours. Phone ahead and ask whether the church is open on your dates and whether the Perugino is visible or under scaffolding.
• If your priority is the art, plan a two-part visit. Simone Martini’s Blessed Agostino Novello Altarpiece is in the Pinacoteca Nazionale (currently closed) and Matteo di Giovanni’s Massacre of the Innocents is at Santa Maria della Scala.
• Consider attending a concert. During the summer festival season the interior is accessible to ticket-holders.

Sources: Comune di Siena (comune.siena.it); Arcidiocesi di Siena-Colle di Val d’Elsa-Montalcino (arcidiocesi.siena.it); Catalogo generale dei Beni Culturali (catalogo.beniculturali.it); Ministero della Cultura (cultura.gov.it); Santa Maria della Scala (santamariadellascala.com); Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena (pinacotecanazionalesiena.it); Treccani; Ashley Elston, “Collaboration and Dissonance in Siena’s Bichi Altarpiece,” Hybridity in Early Modern Art (2021). Checked 5 August 2026.