Pienza (Italian pronunciation: [piˈɛntsa]) is a town and comune in the province of Siena, Tuscany, in the historical region of Val d'Orcia.

Once he became Pope, Piccolomini had the entire village rebuilt as an ideal Renaissance town and renamed it Pienza ("city of Pius").

In 2023, Pienza faced a significant controversy when its centuries-old clock tower bells were silenced at night due to tourist complaints about noise from those staying in nearby hotels.

The decision stirred debate among residents, with some expressing nostalgia for the nightly tolls that had been a part of their lives for generations.

The back of the palace, to the south, is defined by loggia on all three floors that overlook an enclosed Italian Renaissance garden with Giardino all'italiana era modifications, and views into the distant landscape of the Val d'Orcia and Pope Pius's beloved Monte Amiata beyond.

Although the tripartite division is conventional, the use of pilasters and of columns, standing on high dados and linked by arches, was novel for the time.

It is likely that Bernardo Rossellino designed the Palazzo Comunale to be a free standing civic mediator between the religious space before the cathedral and secular market square to its rear.

The flanking Corinthian support a classical entablature columns whose decorations are clearly based upon actual source materials.

Other buildings in Pienza dating from the era of Pius II include the Ammannati Palace, named for Cardinal Jacopo Piccolomini-Ammannati, a "curial row" of three palaces (the Palazzo Jouffroy or Atrebatense belonging to Cardinal Jean Jouffroy of Arras, the Palazzo Buonconti, belonging to Vatican Treasurer Giliforte dei Buonconti, and the Palazzo Lolli constructed by apostolic secretary and papal relative Gregorio Lolli) arranged along the street behind the Bishops Palace.

In the northeastern corner of Pienza, in via Casanuova, is a series of Twelve row houses constructed at the orders of the pope by the Sienese building contractor Pietro Paolo da Porrina.

About fifty meters west of the Cathedral Piazza is the church of San Francesco, with a gabled facade and Gothic portal.

The frazione of Monticchiello is home to a characteristic Romitorio, a series of grottoes carved in the rock by hermit monks.

The interior has frescoes from a 14th-century Sienese painter, a cyborium in the shape of a small Gothic portal and an alte 15th-century Crucifix.