Level IV

The Children's Art Museum was established in Siena in 1998 and quickly gained recognition in the city for its rich cultural program of artistic events and related educational activities aimed at young audiences.
In 2007, it relocated to Santa Maria della Scala, gaining a new venue, a space dedicated to its collection, and taking on the role of Educational Services within the museum complex.

Officially established in 1774 following the marriage between Caterina Piccolomini di Modanella and Giuseppe Spannocchi, the collection is the result of three distinct nuclei and boasts a much older origin, whose history is intertwined with the great historical and political events that shook the whole of Europe during the seventeenth century.

In fact, the museum hosts a tactile journey of works created with the collaboration of the sculpture students of the Duccio di Buoninsegna art school and black and relief images of some of the main city monuments designed with the Siena section of the UICI and produced thanks to the collaboration of Rotary Siena Est.

In 1328, the hospital expanded its structure with the construction of a men's pilgrim lodge, achieved through the acquisition and demolition of surrounding houses to overcome a height difference of three floors. This pilgrim lodge marked the beginning of the development of the area designated for male assistance, extending the hospital towards the little square of Selva. 

The Sant’Ansano hall, together with the adjacent San Galgano hall, originally constituted a single large space that served the function of a male pilgrims' dormitory. It was used until the mid-14th century when the 'new pilgrims' dormitory' was built, later frescoed in the 15th century.

The hall can be requested for concession.

Capacity: up to 50 seats
Events: conferences and presentations
Services: WiFi, PC and audio-video system

The Chapel of the Mantle of Santa Maria della Scala has been one of the most modified spaces throughout its long history. Originally part of the primitive core of the hospital, it was a portico with three arches mentioned in a document from 1248. In the 13th century, it was transformed for civil and administrative purposes and became the seat of the chapter of friars. Between the end of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th century, the chapel underwent a sacred transformation with the addition of new religious decorations and a ribbed vault. Another significant change occurred in 1359 when it was adapted as a chapel for the sacred relics acquired in Constantinople, with the construction of a wooden choir. In the 15th century, with the transfer of the relics, the chapel became known as the Chapel of the Mantle, thanks to a fresco of the Madonna of the Mantle created by Domenico di Bartolo. In 1610, the fresco was transferred to the Old Sacristy. During the 16th century, the chapel saw further renewal, with the decoration of the vault by Domenico di Pace and the creation of a nativity scene. In the 1990s, the chapel, which had been used as the emergency room of the hospital for years, suffered damage to the painted decorations. A restoration intervention has restored decorative details and the original charm of the environment.

The space can be rented:

Capacity: up to 90 seats
Events: presentations and concerts
*any setups, to be agreed upon with the Management, are at the expense of the concessionaire
Services: WiFi

For information and quotes
[email protected]
0577534504

Since the fourteenth century, the San Pio hall was part of another 'pilgrimage' of the hospital which later became a nursing home. Today, it hosts a series of seventeenth-century paintings and two important canvases by Pietro Aldi.

The medieval hospital contains an extraordinary pathway for access to the various levels and connection between the parts: this is the so-called 'internal road' or covered road, which, in the memory of the Sienese of the twentieth century, is most often recalled as 'voltoni'.

In the 1340s, during a period of extraordinary historical significance for Siena and its main hospital, in an atmosphere of great cultural, religious, and political ferment, the assisting and religious spaces of Santa Maria della Scala were extensively renovated and enriched with decorative elements, paintings, furnishings, and chapels, to the extent that the hospital became one of the most important centers of artistic production of the early Sienese Renaissance.

On August 17, 1379, a resolution from the hospital indicated the existence of a pilgrim shelter and ordered its doubling in an identical room.

The San Leopoldo hall has hosted the Children's Art Museum Collection since 2008. Inside there are international works dedicated to the world of childhood.

In 1328, the hospital expanded its structure with the construction of a male pilgrim's hostel, achieved through the acquisition and demolition of surrounding houses to overcome a height difference of three stories.

The San Galgano and Sant’Ansano halls formed a single male pilgrims' ward, later modified and expanded between the 13th and 19th centuries with various uses and transformations.

The volume retraces the history of the coin collection of the National Archaeological Museum, highlighting its main sources and the find contexts within the Siena area.

From May 6 to May 18, 2025, the Santa Maria della Scala will host the exhibition WE, YOU, THE OTHERS. Together along the paths of art, curated by the Cooperativa Riuscita Sociale and the Caselli Institute of Education. 

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On December 11 and 12, 2024, as part of the celebrations organized by the Tuscany Region for the 450th anniversary of the death of Cosimo I de' Medici, the conference "Siena, Florence and Cosimo I de' Medici" will take place in the Sant'Ansano hall.

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