From the street you cannot see it: in vicolo delle Scotte, three minutes from piazza del Campo, there is only a door like all the others. That was the rule for synagogues built inside ghettos, which were not allowed anything outside that made them recognisable. Behind that door, however, is a neoclassical hall of 1786, designed by a Florentine architect, with stuccoes, marbles and candelabra: outside the imposed anonymity, inside everything the community could afford.
What to see
The hall is rectangular and has the classic layout of Italian synagogues: the ark of the Scriptures on one side, the reading platform opposite, and wooden benches along the walls, so that the congregation face one another. Above runs the women's gallery. The decoration stands between rococo and neoclassical, and it is one of the few pieces of architecture in that taste in this part of Tuscany.
The Siena ghetto had been instituted in the sixteenth century and stayed closed until the nineteenth; plaques in the synagogue recall two hard moments of its history: 1799, when during the anti-French riots a mob attacked the ghetto and several Sienese Jews were killed in the city, and the deportation of the Jews of Siena during the German occupation. They are two lines of stone, without emphasis, and they are in the room where people pray.
Visiting
The synagogue is in vicolo delle Scotte, behind piazza del Campo; it is visited with a ticket and a guided tour, with limited hours and closure on Saturdays and Jewish holidays. Three quarters of an hour. It is run by the Jewish community and is still in use.
Our editors' tip
Before going in, step back a little in the lane and look at the front: there is no star, no inscription, nothing. It is the most eloquent thing about the visit, and you lose it if you go straight inside. Then, indoors, ask the guide where the gates of the ghetto stood: they were a few metres away, and the streets around are still those of that time.