The story
Siena's cathedral museum exists to hold the things too precious or too fragile to leave in the cathedral itself, and its greatest possession is a single altarpiece. In 1311 Duccio di Buoninsegna finished the 'Maesta', an enormous double-sided panel of the enthroned Virgin surrounded by saints, and the whole city is said to have carried it to the cathedral in procession. It stood on the high altar for two centuries, then was taken down, sawn apart, and eventually gathered here, its front and back now shown so you can walk around both.
The museum fills part of an unfinished nave. In the 1330s Siena began enlarging its cathedral into one of the biggest in Christendom, then the Black Death of 1348 killed off the plan and much of the workforce, leaving a giant half-built wall.
You can climb that wall. A narrow stair inside the Facciatone, the abandoned facade, comes out on a high ledge with one of the best views over Siena's rooftops, standing on a cathedral that was never finished.
