During a fascinating period of the Italian Renaissance, humanist scholars and architects set out to create the ideal city.  Surprisingly, one of these urban planners was a pope–Pope Pious II.  Pius II (formerly known as Enea Silvio Piccolomini) transformed his home town, Cosignano, into a miniature urban Renaissance Utopia.  He hired the architect Rossellino to rip down the every-which-way jumble of medieval buildings, replacing them with an orderly town square.  Cosignano was renamed Pienza and it’s now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  No, wait, not only is Pienza is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but the countryside surrounding it, the Val d’Orcia, is also a UNESCO site.  Seriously people: UNESCO squared.  Given my passion for UNESCO and that Renaissance humanism is my religion, Pienza was a place we needed to visit, stat.

The plaza, Pio II square,  is a trapezoidal shape and is much smaller than it appears.  Did you notice how…