Siena - San Francesco

To the northeast of Piazza Salimbeni stands the Gothic Church of San Francesco, a Franciscan foundation begun in 1326 but not completed until 1475. Like San Doménico, San Francesco shows the architectural style of the Mendicant Orders, with an aisleless nave and no apse at the east end. The campanile was added in 1765. The interior, with its open timber roof, is painted in alternate bands of black and white, imitating the marble facing of the cathedral.

Along the walls hang the banners of the old craft guilds. In the left transept are a magnificent fresco of the Crucifixion (c. 1330) by Pietro Lorenzetti and frescoes of St Louis of Toulouse (1274-97) before Pope Boniface VIII and the Martyrdom of Franciscans at Ceuta by Ambrogio Lorenzetti (c. 1330).