Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena

The oldest continuously operating bank in the world

The headquarters of Monte dei Paschi has been at Palazzo Salimbeni for centuries. The bank itself — older than the printing press, older than European voyages to America — is one of Siena's deepest institutional landmarks, and its present difficulties form a quiet undertone to civic life.

A small in-house exhibition in the Palazzo Salimbeni complex can be visited by appointment with the bank's cultural office. Outside, the bronze statue of Sallustio Bandini, the 18th-century economist and Sienese clergyman, is the most visible monument.

things to do sight
A story
Monte dei Paschi was founded in 1472 as a lending institution to help the poor at fair rates of interest — a charitable mont-de-piété — and survived as a state-backed bank for more than five centuries. Its near-collapse in the 2010s shook the Italian banking system and the city, where the bank had been the largest employer, sponsor, and patron of the arts for generations.