The church of Santa Maria in Provenzano was built to hold the miraculous image of Our Lady to which the people of Siena were deeply attached. The Medici family felt it was a good idea to encourage the spread of this devotion as a way of consolidating the power of the Grand Dukes in the city and to overshadow that of Our Lady of Votive Offerings, the emblem of the defeat of the Florentines at Montaperti. Because of the dispositions laid down by the Counter-Reformation, a move made by the Catholic Church in response to the accusations of Martin Luther and the unceasing spread of Protestantism, the clergy of the city tried to stifle this devotion. On 2 July 1594 the Sienese people made these miracles public, but the church was only built beginning in 1595, after approval by the Congregation of Rites, a part of the Roman Curia. The plans for the church were supposed to be an example of modern architecture and to take into account the new norms issued by the Council of Trent for evangelization. For this reason, among the various proposals put forth, Grand Duke Ferdinand I chose the model by the Carthusian monk Damiano Schifardini, while execution of the work was entrusted to the Sienese artist Flaminio del Turco. The sober, rational architectural structure, characterized by a few elements in relief, underlines the force of what it contains. The travertine façade is distinguished . . .