Archivio di Stato di Siena, State Archive in Palazzo Piccolomini, Siena, Italy.
The State Archive of Siena occupies several floors of a Renaissance palace located on Via Banchi di Sotto in the city center. It houses tens of thousands of volumes and periodicals that document the political and economic history of the city.
The archive was established in 1858 to safeguard and gather documents from the former Republic of Siena and the Tuscan region. The building was later restructured to accommodate the vast collections it needed to store.
The archive displays painted wooden tablets from medieval times that once covered financial records, now shown in a dedicated section. These artworks reveal how the city documented its administration while creating pieces of visual beauty.
The facility is located in central Siena and easy to reach on foot, with clear signage throughout the building. Visitors should note that accessing the collections may require advance notice, and browsing the materials can take considerable time.
The building was completely redesigned in the 1880s by a prominent architect to meet the specific demands of archive storage. This transformation made it an example of how a historic structure could be adapted for modern purposes.
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