The Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena is located in the historic center of the city. The Pinacoteca houses the most important collection of paintings on gold leaf panels from the 14th and 15th centuries of Sienese art. The first core of the collection was born at the end of the 18th century thanks to the passion of local scholars who wanted to safeguard from destruction and alienation the artworks of the oldest period, the so-called primitives. The Museum was inaugurated in the Palazzi Buonsignori and Brigidi in 1932 with the scientific organization by Cesare Brandi who, in 1933, published its catalog. The more recent history of the Pinacoteca has seen, since the late 1970s of the last century, a process of exhibition renewal, born on the wave of many thematic exhibitions dedicated to the most significant artistic currents represented in the collection. The museum visit starts on the second floor where the paintings of the golden age of Sienese Gothic painting are exhibited, from the origins to the 15th century passing through the masterpieces of Duccio, Simone Martini, the brothers Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti and the late 14th-century artists. In the 15th century, the refined and imaginative painting of Giovanni di Paolo and Sano di Pietro is confirmed, but also the openings to the Renaissance renewal of Sassetta, Vecchietta, Matteo di Giovanni, up to the full adherence to classical culture by Francesco di Giorgio Martini. On the first floor, the artistic evolution towards Mannerism is testified thanks to the contribution of Domenico Beccafumi, who is widely represented alongside his contemporaries Sodoma, Riccio, Marco Pino, and Brescianino. A wing is dedicated to the painters who, from the end of the 16th century, first operated in a late Mannerist sense and then in a naturalistic sense, impressed by the novelty of Caravaggio: Francesco Vanni, Rutilio Manetti, and Bernardino Mei. Also on the second floor, the recent arrangement of the hall of stone sculptures offers the visitor a suggestive view over the rooftops of Siena.