Siena Unveiled

For centuries, Siena served as a place for pilgrims to rest their heads, yet its own people, beauty, and innovation have remained unheralded. What is it, then, about this Tuscan city that so enchants? Jane Tylus, professor of Italian and comparative literature at New York University, seeks answers above and below the surface, and details her experiences living in Siena—as neither an insider nor outsider—in her recent memoir/cultural history, Siena: City of Secrets (2015, University of Chicago Press), discussed here in an interview with Christopher Brown (Ph.D., Italian Studies at Harvard).