Pienza: You can find the jewel of a Renaissance town in the south of the province of Siena (53 km), 24 km from Montaicino and 15 km from Montepulciano. When Iooking for a piace to film Romeo and JuIiet in 1968 , director Franco Zeffirelii found the perfect backdrop awaiting him in Pienza, so he bypassed “fair Verona” as the obvious choice.
   Pienza was also used in the Oscar winning epice The English Patient. Although it appear as a medieval town on film, Pienza is more noteworthy as a testament to the ambitions and ego of a quintessential Renaissance man.
   Pope Pius Il (of Siena’s illustrious Piccolomini family) was born here in 1405 when the town was called Corsignano, and in 1459 (a year after he was elected pope), he commissioned Fiorentine architect Bernardo Rossellino to ievel the medieval core of the town and create the first stage of what would be the model High Renaissance city. He renamed it Pienza, in his own honor.
The grand scheme didn’t get very far (the pope died in 1464), but what has remained Is perfectly preserved and has became a UNESCO-protected site..