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san gimignano |
| SAN GIMIGNANO , 27km northwest of Siena, is perhaps the most-visited
small village in Italy. Its stunning hilltop skyline of towers, built in
aristocratic rivalry by the feuding nobles of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, evokes the appearance of medieval Tuscany more than any other
sight. And the town is all that it's cracked up to be: quietly
monumental, very well preserved, enticingly rural, and with a fine array
of religious and secular frescoes. However, from Easter until October,
San Gimignano has very little life of its own, and a lot of day-trippers.
If you want to reach beyond its facade of quaintness, you should come
well out of season; if you can't, then aim to spend the night here - the
town takes on a very different pace and atmosphere in the evenings. San Gimignano was quite a force to be reckoned with in the early Middle Ages. It was controlled by two great families - the Ardinghelli and the Salvucci - and its 15,000 population (twice the present number) prospered on agricultural holdings and its position on the Lombardy-to-Rome pilgrim route. At its heyday, the town's walls enclosed five monasteries, four hospitals, public baths and a brothel. Feuds , however, had long wreaked havoc: the first Ardinghelli-Salvucci conflict erupted in 1246. Whenever the town itself was united, it picked fights with Volterra, Poggibonsi and other neighbours. These were halted only by the Black Death , which devastated the population and - as the pilgrim trade collapsed - the economy. Subjection to Florence broke the power of the nobles and so their tower-houses, symbolic in other towns of real control, were not torn down; today, 15 of an original 72 survive. At the beginning of the last century, travellers spoke of San Gimignano as "miserably poor"; its postwar history has been one of ever-increasing affluence, through tourism and the production of an old-established but recently rejuvenated white wine , Vernaccia. The famous Festival Internazionale ( www.fts.toscana.it ) fills a couple of weeks in late July with opera , ballet and concerts of symphonic and chamber music on an open-air stage in Piazza Duomo; consult the tourist office for full details. The Town You could walk from one end of San Gimignano to the other in about fifteen minutes. It deserves at least a day, however, both for its frescoes and its lovely surrounding countryside. From the southern gate, Porta San Giovanni , the palazzo-lined Via San Giovanni leads to the interlocking main squares, the Piazza della Cisterna and Piazza del Duomo. On the right of the street, about 100m up, is the former church of San Francesco - a Romanesque building converted, like many of the palazzi , to a wine shop. You enter the Piazza della Cisterna through another gateway, the Arco dei Becci , part of the original fortifications built before the town expanded in the twelfth century. The square itself is flanked by an anarchic cluster of towers and palazzi , and is named after the thirteenth-century public cistern, still functioning in the centre. To the left (northwest) of the square is one of the old Ardinghelli towers; a Salvucci rival rears up behind. An arch leads through to the more austere Piazza Duomo , with further towers and civic palazzi . -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A single biglietto cumulativo , overpriced at L20,000/¬10.33, covers admission to most of the town's orthodox museums - the Collegiata/Duomo, Museo d'Arte Sacra, Museo Civico, Torre Grossa and Museo Archeologico/Spezieria. You can buy it from any of the participating places, but it's only worthwhile if you're visiting most of them. Not included are the wackier private concerns such as the Museo della Tortura. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |