Buonconvento is located in the heart of the Crete Senesi and its name derives from the Latin bonus conventus, meaning "happy and fortunate community": here travelers interrupted their journay along the Via Francigena to take lodging and refreshment.
The circuit of strong defense walls, the architectural style of which recalls that of Siena, once enclosed the entire village.
It had no openings other than two gates with thick wooden doors with iron fittings: Porta Senese on the northern side, toward Siena, and Porta Romana on the south, destroyed in 1944 by the retreating Germans.
Remaining intact for centuries, protected by the moat and the Guelf battlements of the watch walkway, the village underwent great transformations in the 1800s, with the construction of buildings just outside the walls, including the Teatro dei Risorti.
Inside the walls, the village is crossed from north to south by Via Soccini, the old family whose members included a couple of heretics, who contested a number of church doctrines in the 16th century.
The street on which "Socianism" was born, so to speak, is also the most aristocratic street in Buonconvento, that upon which the palazzi of power and of the biggest property owners were built.
Among the most important monuments to see in Buonconvento we point out here the Parrocchiale di San Pietro (Saint Peter Parish), the Oratorio di San Sebastiano (Saint Sebastian Oratory), the Palazzo Ricci (Ricci Palace), hosting today the "Holy Art Museum of the valley of Arbia" and the "Ethnographic Museum of the Sharecropping".