Santa Maria della Scala

The large complex of Santa Maria della Scala, situated in the heart of Siena, in front of the cathedral, was one of the earliest European examples of a hospital, with its own autonomous organization and structured to care for pilgrims, assist the poor and provide for abandoned children. The Santa Maria della Scala extraordinarily preserved intact the testimony of a thousand years of history, a path that, from the Etruscan and Roman art, from the Middle Ages to the Reinassance, comes down to us unbroken.