An authentic, richly illustrated history and a loving celebration of Siena, one of Italy's most beloved and visited cities. Situated on a ridge amidst a vast, rolling landscape, Siena is as appealing to the modern tourist as Florence. However, its proud republican past offers an interesting contrast to the dominant role of the Medici in northern Tuscany, with which it vied for regional supremacy for much of the High Middle Ages. From the twelfth century, taking advantage of its favorable position on a major pilgrimage route, the Republic of Siena emerged as a major European power and remained an important commercial, financial, and artistic center for four centuries. Jane Stevenson traces the changing fortunes of a city that rose to an astonishingly productive cultural flourishing in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, suffered a catastrophic fall in the late Middle Ages after the Black Plague, but transcended the loss of broader political power to enjoy a prosperous civic afterlife. Today, Siena enjoys a cherished position as a uniquely well-preserved medieval city, filled with world-class art and architecture, charming and intriguing traditions, and set in a heavenly landscape.