Pienza, the European Dream of Pope Pius II Piccolomini

Abstract

Pienza represents the most faithful portrait of Pope Pius II. Yet studies have not investigated in depth the symbolic relationship that can be traced back between the urban planning project realized in Pienza and the historical utopia of Pope Pius II (born Piccolomini) outlined in De Europa, which accompanied him until his death in the hope of a crusade of a united Europe against the Turkish enemy. Faced with the advance of the Turkish danger, in the words of Pius II Europe was defined on the basis of a common identity on the religious side (Europe as a Christian Republic) and on the civil and cultural side (Europe as civilization - Asia as barbarity). This paper will highlight how the buildings which make up Pienza’s 15th century urban planning intervention are rich in architectural structure of references and dialogues between cultures of different times and places. This characteristic is not a mixture of contradictory stylistic elements, rather they must be interpreted as an attempt to construct that symbolic place where Pius II tried to reconnect the threads between the various realities that made up the European scene, ideally merging them in Pienza «so that the joints fit together perfectly and the protrusions of the stones look like weaving», demonstrating that peaceful coexistence between the most diverse cultures that animate 15th century Europe is possible, under the common denominator of Christianity.