Siena is situated on three gently rising hills in central Tuscany, Italy. Siena is quite rightly extremely popular with tourists but because it is a town and not a village like San Gimignano, for example, it usually does not seem excessively crowded. The fine piazza, magnificent cathedral and museums, as well as the twice yearly palio and the interesting folk culture associated with it, make Siena worth intensive study. Sienese painting and architecture of the Renaissance and later is second in importance only to that of Florence in the history of Italian art.