---
node: spot_siena_basilica_of_san_domenico_siena
type: spot
slug: basilica_of_san_domenico_siena
destination: dest_siena
title: "Basilica of San Domenico"
lead: "San Domenico is a plain brick Dominican church on the hill west of the centre, and it holds the head of Saint Catherine of Siena in a reliquary on the high altar. She took the Dominican habit here as a teenager."
published: 2026-08-12
updated: 2026-08-12
image_file: spot_siena_basilica_of_san_domenico_siena.jpg
image_source: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cappella_di_santa_caterina,_01.jpg"
image_author: "Sailko"
image_license: "CC BY 3.0"
---

## Overview

The building is deliberately austere — a preaching barn with a single wide nave and no aisles, built to hold a crowd listening rather than a procession moving. Andrea Vanni's portrait of Catherine, painted in her lifetime, hangs in a chapel near the entrance and is the only likeness taken from life. Her body is in Rome; Siena obtained the head in 1383, which was normal practice for a relic of that importance and is startling to see.

## Highlights

The chapel of Saint Catherine is halfway down the right side, frescoed by Sodoma with her ecstasy and her swoon. From the terrace outside the west door the cathedral stands across the valley at eye level, which is the best free view in Siena. Her house, the Santuario di Santa Caterina, is a five-minute walk downhill.