Archi Travel Guide

Buonconvento: An Emperor Died in This Brick Town, and the Tour Buses Still Drive Past It

A Holy Roman Emperor died here in 1313 and Siena walled the town in brick. Buonconvento is the flat, train-reachable Val d’Arbia stop most tours skip.

Quick answer

Buonconvento solves a problem every Siena-based itinerary eventually hits: you want one more small town, but you are tired of hills, tired of crowds, and tied to public transport. Buonconvento is flat, it is on the railway — 31 to 34 minutes from Siena, around ten trains a day — it is a member of the *Borghi più Belli d'Italia* club of Italy's most beautiful villages, and almost nobody goes. It is a walled market town of the Val d'Arbia, built in brick rather than hill-town stone, and it earns its visit in three ways: as the best late-lunch town south of Siena, as the transport gateway to Montalcino (the rail-plus-bus trick our car-free guide leans on), and as the scene of one of the strangest afternoons in Italian history.

Because this modest town, in August 1313, is where the story of the Holy Roman Empire in Italy effectively ended. The emperor Henry VII — the *alto Arrigo* for whom Dante reserved a throne in Paradise — died here, of malaria, on his way to war. Siena's response, later that century, was to wrap the town in the handsome rectangular brick walls you still walk through.

Give it one to two hours, or a half day with lunch at its centre. This guide covers the emperor, the walls, the one street that matters, the small museum with Sienese gold-ground painting in it, and the practical role Buonconvento can play in a Siena-based week — which is larger than its size suggests.

The name is the sales pitch: a good place to stop

Buonconvento's name comes from the Latin *bonus conventus* — a good gathering, a fortunate community. People settled here for the reasons the name celebrates: fertile riverside land near where the Arbia meets the Ombrone, and a crossing point on the most important road in medieval Europe — the Via Francigena, the pilgrim route from Canterbury to Rome, which forded the river here.

That road made the town. Buonconvento enters the written record in 1191, when Philip Augustus, King of France, passed through and rested here — and for centuries afterwards it did for ordinary travellers what it did for the king: fed them, lodged them, and sent them on toward Rome. Everything Buonconvento has ever been — market town, staging post, garrison, lunch stop — is a variation on that original function. It has always been the place on the road where you stop.

It is worth saying plainly how different this makes it from the Tuscan towns you have already seen. San Gimignano, Montalcino, Monteriggioni — these are hilltop places, built up and away from the road for defence, reached by a climb. Buonconvento sits flat on the valley floor, astride the road itself, because its business was the road. For the visitor the consequence is delightfully practical: no ascent, no shuttle, no cardio. You step off a train onto the valley floor, a short level walk from the walls.

24 August 1313: the day the Empire died here

In 1313 the most powerful man in Europe was moving south through Tuscany with an army, and the future of Italy appeared to hang on him.

Henry VII of Luxembourg, Holy Roman Emperor, had come into Italy to do what no emperor had seriously attempted in generations: actually rule it — to stand above the feuding cities, pacify the Guelph–Ghibelline wars, and restore the Empire as a working power in the peninsula. For Italians exhausted by two generations of factional bloodshed — Montaperti and its aftermath among them — he was either a deliverer or a catastrophe, depending on your party. Dante believed in him totally: the poet saw in Henry the God-sent restorer of order, and wrote him into the *Paradiso* — in Canto XXX, among the highest passages of the entire *Commedia*, Beatrice shows Dante a great throne already reserved in Heaven for "l'alto Arrigo", the lofty Henry, who would come to set Italy straight before she was ready for him.

By August 1313 Henry was marching from Pisa against the Kingdom of Naples, the Guelphs' great southern anchor — and he was sick. Malaria, contracted on campaign, was burning through him. He left Siena on 22 August, made it as far as this small town on the Francigena, and here, on 24 August 1313, he died.

With him died the project. No Holy Roman Emperor after Henry would make a comparably serious attempt to govern Italy; historians have called his expedition the Empire's last sincere try. The cities went back to their wars, Dante's hope became one of the great elegies of the *Commedia* — a throne in the Empyrean for a king who never got to reign — and an anonymous market town on the Arbia acquired, in one afternoon, a permanent place in European history. There is no queue for this history and no monument dominating a square — standing on Via Soccini with a shopping trolley or two rattling past, knowing what ended here, is exactly the kind of history-where-you-least-expect-it moment this corner of Tuscany specialises in.

The brick walls Siena built afterwards

The town you walk into today is, structurally, Siena's reaction to that century. Between 1371 and 1385 the Republic of Siena — for whom Buonconvento guarded the southern approach along the Francigena — enclosed the town in a new circuit of walls: rectangular in plan, built in terracotta brick, in the same warm Sienese brickwork as the Campo's palaces. Of the nine original watchtowers, seven still stand, and the circuit survives largely intact — not as a romantic ruin but as the working edge of the town, with the streets inside still following the medieval grid.

Brick is the thing to notice, because it tells you who built this and what it was for. Hill towns rise in grey and honey-coloured stone; Buonconvento is red-brown brick from wall to wall — the material of the Sienese plain, of a republic that built fast, flat and practical where the land allowed. If Monteriggioni is Siena's frontier architecture at its most theatrical, Buonconvento is the same state's infrastructure: a fortified service station on the empire of the road.

The walk that shows it best takes fifteen minutes: enter through the town gate, follow Via Soccini — the single main street, running the length of the town — to the far end, then loop back outside the walls along the circuit to see the brickwork and the towers from the fields. That outer loop, flat and unfenced, is the town's best photograph and its emptiest path.

Inside the walls: one street, done properly

Everything in Buonconvento hangs off Via Soccini, and the street itself carries the town's second-strangest story: it is named for the local Soccini (Sozzini) family, which in the sixteenth century produced a pair of Europe's most notorious religious dissidents — theologians whose contested doctrines scandalised Catholic and Protestant authorities alike. An emperor-killing, heretic-raising market town you can cross on foot in ten minutes: Buonconvento's history-per-square-metre ratio is genuinely absurd.

Along or just off the street, the sights, honestly sized:

• Palazzo Podestarile — the medieval seat of Siena's governors, with its fourteenth-century civic tower and a façade studded with twenty-five stone coats of arms of the podestàs who ruled here. The best single façade in town; a five-minute look.
• Museo d'Arte Sacra della Val d'Arbia — the reason to allow the second hour. Housed in the nineteenth-century Palazzo Ricci-Socini on Via Soccini, it gathers altarpieces and painted panels from the churches of the surrounding valley, with works from the orbit of Duccio di Buoninsegna and the Sienese gold-ground tradition — the same school you crossed Siena to see, here in a museum you will likely have to yourself. We could not verify its current opening days and tariff from here, and small-town museums keep civic hours: check the day's opening before building the trip around it, and treat a closed door as a real possibility on Mondays and off-season weekdays.
• The parish church and the streetscape itself — Gothic arches, brick façades, and the pleasantly workaday shops of a town that still primarily serves its own valley. Buonconvento is not curated for visitors, which is precisely its charm: this is what a Sienese market town looks like when nobody is performing.

And then there is lunch, which deserves its own section.

The late-lunch capital of the Sienese south

Our Crete Senesi guide calls Buonconvento "good for the late lunch the hill villages struggle to provide", and it is worth unpacking why that is true, because it is the most useful practical fact about the town.

The hill towns of the Sienese south are small, steep and seasonal: kitchens close sharply after the lunch service, tables in the famous villages go to whoever booked, and arriving at 14:30 in Pienza or Montalcino with an appetite is a known way to end up eating a sad panino standing up. Buonconvento — flat, local, on the road home — is the region's pressure valve. Its trattorias serve the Val d'Arbia's own repertoire: hand-rolled pici, wild-boar ragù, ribollita in the cold months, the unglamorous, excellent cooking of a grain-and-livestock valley — the seasonal logic of it is here. Prices run local rather than touristic, because the clientele is local.

So the pattern that works: do your morning in the hills — Montalcino, the Crete Senesi loop, or the abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore — and drop down to Buonconvento for the long lunch on the way back to Siena. The town's fifteen-minute sights fit neatly around the meal, the drive or train home afterwards is short, and you will have spent the crowded hours of the day somewhere the crowds are not. We name no individual restaurants because we could not verify their current details from here — in a town this size, walk Via Soccini and pick the room with locals in it; the method outperforms any list.

Getting there — and the Montalcino trick

By train (the headline). Buonconvento has what almost no small town in southern Tuscany has: a working railway station on the Siena–Grosseto line, 31 to 34 minutes from Siena with around ten trains a day, and the station sits on the flat, a short level walk from the walls. No hill, no shuttle, no timetable roulette. Among Sienese day trips only Florence and Arezzo are this simple, as our car-free guide lays out.

The Montalcino trick. That same station is the smoother half of the best car-free route to Montalcino: train to Buonconvento, then bus line 114 for the short fourteen-kilometre climb — about half an hour, running every two hours or so. Which means Buonconvento can anchor a genuinely good car-free double: morning train out, the 114 up to Montalcino for the morning and a tasting, back down on the 114, long lunch in Buonconvento, train home. Plan the 114's return times before committing — the interval is two-hourly, not metro-like — and treat Sundays as a different, thinner timetable to verify separately.

By bus. Direct Autolinee Toscane services from Siena's Piazza Gramsci reach Buonconvento in 30–35 minutes — useful when the train times don't fit.

By car. The town sits directly on the Via Cassia (SR2) south of Siena — the modern descendant of the very road that created it — which is why every Val d'Orcia driving loop passes its gates. It is the natural first or last stop of a southern driving day, with none of the parking anxiety of the hill towns.

On the calendar. Two seasonal notes from our own guides: the heritage Treno Natura steam and vintage trains run through this line's landscape on a yearly calendar of dates (see the Crete Senesi guide — look the current dates up rather than assuming), and on the first weekend of October, L'Eroica puts thousands of vintage cyclists across the region's white roads — a spectacle, but also a reason to book that weekend's beds early.

How we checked these details

Checked 19 August 2026, by web research; direct page fetches are blocked in our environment, so this rests on search-surfaced material — led by the Borghi più Belli d'Italia association's own entry, the Terre di Siena tourism board and heritage sources — rather than pages we opened.

Verified: the derivation of the name from the Latin *bonus conventus* and the town's position at a Via Francigena crossing of the Arbia valley near the river's meeting with the Ombrone; the first record in 1191 with the passage of Philip Augustus of France; the death of Emperor Henry VII of Luxembourg at Buonconvento on 24 August 1313, of malaria, after leaving Siena on 22 August en route against Naples, and the standing of his expedition as the Empire's last serious attempt to rule Italy; Dante's throne reserved for "l'alto Arrigo" in *Paradiso* XXX; the Sienese brick walls of 1371–1385, rectangular in plan, with seven of nine watchtowers surviving and the circuit largely intact; Via Soccini and its name's link to the Soccini/Sozzini family and their sixteenth-century religious dissidence; the Palazzo Podestarile with its fourteenth-century tower and twenty-five podestà coats of arms; the Museo d'Arte Sacra della Val d'Arbia in Palazzo Ricci-Socini with works from the circle of Duccio; and membership of *I Borghi più Belli d'Italia*. Transport figures — the 31–34-minute Siena–Buonconvento train with roughly ten daily services, the 30–35-minute bus from Piazza Gramsci, and the line 114 Montalcino connection (14 km, about half an hour, roughly two-hourly) — follow the verification in our car-free Tuscany guide.

Not established, and flagged in the text: the sacred-art museum's current opening days and ticket price — check before you travel, and expect civic hours; current restaurant particulars, which we deliberately do not list; and current Treno Natura dates, which are a yearly calendar to look up. Timetables shift — verify the day's trains and the 114's returns on Trenitalia and at-bus.it before committing, especially on Sundays.

We have no commercial relationship with any business, museum or body named. Nothing on this page is bookable through us.

Final thoughts

Tuscany trains you to expect its history vertically: towers, hilltops, climbs rewarded with views. Buonconvento is the horizontal correction — a flat brick town that never needed a hill because it owned something better, the road itself, and that collected more history at street level than most citadels managed from their crags. An emperor's deathbed, a heretic dynasty's home street, Siena's handsomest utilitarian walls, and the best-value long lunch in the province, all within five hundred metres of a working railway station.

It will never be anyone's headline day. It is the connective tissue of a good Sienese week — the lunch between hills, the station under Montalcino, the walled town you can actually reach when the timetable is against you — and it repays the modest hour it asks for better than places that demand your whole day. The name has been making the same promise since the twelfth century: a good place to stop. It still is.

Frequently asked questions

Is Buonconvento worth visiting?

As a one-to-two-hour stop or a long-lunch base, yes — it is a flat, intact, brick-walled market town of the Val d’Arbia, a member of the Borghi più Belli d’Italia, with a genuinely startling history and almost no tourists. It pairs best with a Montalcino or Crete Senesi morning rather than standing as a full day on its own.

What happened in Buonconvento in 1313?

Emperor Henry VII of Luxembourg — Dante’s "alto Arrigo", for whom Paradiso XXX reserves a throne in Heaven — died here of malaria on 24 August 1313, while marching from Pisa against Naples. His death ended the last serious attempt by a Holy Roman Emperor to rule Italy, and Dante’s imperial hopes with it.

How do you get to Buonconvento from Siena?

Easily, even without a car: the Siena–Grosseto train takes 31–34 minutes with around ten services a day, and the station sits on the flat, a short level walk from the walls. Direct buses from Siena’s Piazza Gramsci take 30–35 minutes. Drivers find it directly on the Via Cassia (SR2), with none of the hill-town parking problem.

Can you reach Montalcino via Buonconvento?

Yes — it is the classic car-free route: train from Siena to Buonconvento, then bus line 114 for the 14 km climb to Montalcino, about half an hour, running roughly every two hours. Check the 114’s return times before committing to the day, and verify Sunday service separately — the timetable thins sharply.

What is there to see in Buonconvento?

The 1371–1385 Sienese brick walls with seven of their nine towers, best seen from the flat loop outside the circuit; Via Soccini, the single main street, named for the town’s sixteenth-century heretic family; the Palazzo Podestarile with twenty-five podestà coats of arms; and the Museo d’Arte Sacra della Val d’Arbia, with Sienese gold-ground painting from the circle of Duccio — confirm its opening days before travelling.

Why is Buonconvento called that?

From the Latin bonus conventus — a good, fortunate gathering. The town grew at a Via Francigena crossing of the fertile Arbia valley, feeding and lodging travellers on the road to Rome; it enters the record in 1191, when King Philip Augustus of France rested here. The name has described the town’s function — a good place to stop — for over eight centuries.

Siena Travel Guide · Florence to Siena by Train or Bus · Where to Stay in Siena · Tuscany Travel Guide · Travel Budget Calculator · Editorial Policy · About · Contact · Privacy Policy · Sitemap