The buildings containing the administrative offices and areas destined to activities such as receptions, lectures and exhibitions, define the perimeter of Piazza Salimbeni. The façade of the sixteenth-century palace originally belonging to Mariano Tantucci, on the left side of the square, is balanced on the opposite side by Palazzo Spannocchi, with the neo-Gothic façade of Palazzo Salimbeni in the middle.
The building as it appears today is the result of a larger project of architectural and urban renewal involving all the buildings belonging to Monte dei Paschi in the area once the property of the Salimbeni family. The oldest core of the complex can be traced in the structures of the thirteenth century Palazzo Salimbeni. In 1877, the Deputation of Monte dei Paschi approved the project presented by the architect Giuseppe Partini for the construction of a new Piazza Salimbeni, bounded on three sides by three palaces. Before Partini’s intervention, the actual “square” was really only “Costa Salimbeni,” a narrow steep incline from Via Montanini passing between Palazzo Tantucci on one side and the Spannocchi terrace on the other. In 1875 Giuseppe Partini was called to prepare a plan for urban renewal of the square, with the demolition of the terrace attached to Palazzo Spannocchi and recovery of the space freed by its removal, as the completion of the Gothic façade of the Rocca Salimbeni had made evident the necessity to create a new architectonic setting. Work began in 1887 on construction of the new square, completed in 1879 with the raising of a monument to the Sienese economist Sallustio Bandini, made by the sculptor Tito Sarrocchi.
