The Pionta is the burial place of San Donato, the second bishop and patron of the city of Arezzo, the heart and centre of Aretine Christianity. On his tomb, the altar of confession was built in honour of the martyr Donato. Towards this place, the bishops of Arezzo showed great devotion and attachment, so much so that they built their first cathedral there. The Pionta hill, therefore, is not only a testimony of culture, art and history, it is above all a privileged centre of faith and spirituality.

For Arezzo, the Pionta became a high place of worship of the spirit and a beacon for the entire Christian West, which saw in Arezzo an example of religious, cultural and artistic rebirth, so much so as to be cited as a true 'Vaticano Aretino' (quoting Don Angelo Tafi).  Arezzo thus became the centre in the 11th century of the cult of San Donato. With the invasion of the Lombards (late 6th century), who were initially of the Arian faith, the seat of Arezzo's cathedral had moved from the centre to the outskirts, on the Pionta hill, where there was already a small oratorium worship building dedicated to St. Donatus.

From then on, St Donatus became the patron saint of the city of Arezzo, acting as a symbol and an ideal connecting centre of Roman observance in Arezzo. This is how the first biography of St Donatus Passio sancti Donati came into being, transforming him from confessor to martyr of the faith and triggering the construction of churches in his honour. St Donatus became one of the most widespread models of Christian perfection in the early medieval West. 

On the blood shed by St Donatus, pledge of faith and guarantee of sanctity for the church of his successors, the bishops of Arezzo refounded Aretine Christianity. In the 9th and 10th centuries, the powers of the Aretine bishops grew to such an extent that they were favoured by kings, emperors and large landowners, so much so as to make the bishopric the most important political body of the Aretine diocese, superior to the comital institution itself. And it was to San Donato, the legal representative of the church and the city of Arezzo, that the emperor turned in the privilege as his interlocutor. The cult of the saint in the 11th century brought to maturity the process of political growth of the city of Arezzo under the leadership of its bishops: the saint became the guarantor, the symbol of the city, capable of defining a community with its institutions, so much so that in the following centuries he would require its protection.

In the 12th century, the cult of St. Donatus continued to grow in the arts and in the splendid illuminated passionaries, a book typology that knew its heyday in the 12th century. In the Arezzo of the late Middle Ages, San Donato is still the flag and symbol of the city state. "San Donato cavaliere!" was the battle cry of the proud Arezzo cavalry, launched under the command of Bishop Guglielmino Ubertini against the Florentine Guelphs in the ill-fated war of Campaldino (11 June 1289).

In 1306, the relics were transferred to the Pieve di Santa Maria and Bishop Guido Tarlati commissioned the Sienese artist Pietro Lorenzetti (1280-1348) to paint an imposing polyptych depicting the Madonna and Child among Saints, which could not fail to include San Donato. The work was executed using the refined technique of egg tempera on panel described by Cennino Cennino in The Book of Art. 

The artist Silvia Salvadori creates a very accurate reproduction of the figure of the Madonna and Child using the original technique in use in the 14th century. In her research into the painting techniques used in the late and early Middle Ages, artist Silvia Salvadori focuses on the study of tempera on gold background panel paintings, typical of Sienese-Aretine painting.

In the Polyptych of the Parish Church of Arezzo, St. Donatus is depicted as the patron saint with mitre, cope and crosier, next to St. John the Evangelist, the Baptist and the Apostle Matthew. St Donatus therefore appears, together with the figures, among the most important in Christianity. In spite of the centrality of the Virgin and Child, St. Donatus makes a significant appearance: immersed in his golden background, he almost seems to be scrutinising the viewer, inviting him to contemplate the wonder of sacredness, of which the entire altarpiece is the object.

Also attributed to Pietro Lorenzetti is a second marvellous triptych of St Donatus between Saints Bernard and Augustine. The marvellous artistic synthesis of the historical journey is thus expressed. Another admirable representation of the saint is kept inside the Pieve di Santa Maria in Arezzo. We are talking about the gilded silver reliquary bust made in 1346 by Arezzo goldsmiths Pietro Vanni and Paolo Ghiselli. Saint Donato appears austere and inflexible with his splendid mitre embellished with engravings and four-lobed silver plates covered with translucent enamels and precious stones. It is a commendable and majestic work and an absolute masterpiece of 14th-century Arezzo goldsmithing. Arezzo thus became the fruit of a true local 14th-century goldsmith school, initially inspired by the Sienese school, but then capable of becoming autonomous and completely original.