San Gimignano delle belle Torri is in Tuscany, 56 km south of Florence. It served as an important relay point for pilgrims travelling to or from Rome on the Via Francigena. The patrician families who controlled the town built around 72 tower-houses (some as high as 50 m) as symbols of their wealth and power. Although only 14 have survived, San Gimignano has retained its feudal atmosphere and appearance. The town also has several masterpieces of 14th- and 15th-century Italian art.
The Historic Centre of San Gimignano sits on a height of land, dominating the surrounding landscape. During the Middle Ages, its location in Val d’Elsa, 56 km south of Florence, provided an important relay point for pilgrims travelling to or from Rome on the Via Francigena. The town became independent in 1199 and between the 11th and the 13th century the noble families and upper middle-class merchants who controlled the free town built many fortified tower houses (probably 72) as symbols of their wealth and power. The town grew around two principal squares: the triangular Piazza della Cisterna, ornamented with a lovely central well, and the Piazza Duomo, dating from the late 13th century with its more intricate layout containing the majority of public and private monuments. After 1353, the town went into a period of decline due to waves of famine and plague that caused a drastic decrease in population. Within a hundred years, the town was downgraded to the level of the other lands under the Florentine control. This status, however, prevented the town from the urban renewal that transformed many Italian historical towns after the Middle Ages.
While only 14 of the original tower houses have survived, San Gimignano has retained its feudal atmosphere and appearance, embellished with several notable palaces during the 12th and 14th century. The town also has several masterpieces of Italian art dating to the 14th and 15th centuries. These are found in the cathedral as well as in other prominent religious and public buildings.
The Historic Centre of San Gimignano is a cultural site of exceptional value, since it has treasured its architectural homogeneity and its original urban layout. The buildings within the town’s double wall provide a shining example of medieval architecture with influences of Florentine, Sienese, and Pisan styles from the 12th to the 14th century.
Criterion (i): The Historic Centre of San Gimignano contains a series of masterpieces of 14th and 15th century Italian art in their original architectural settings, including: in the Cathedral, the fresco of The Last Judgment, Heaven and Hell by Taddeo di Bartolo (1393), The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian by Benozzo Gozzoli (1465) and above all the magnificent frescoes by Domenico Ghirlandaio such as the cycle of Santa Fina (1475) and the Annunciation in the Baptistery (1482). Other works of the same outstanding beauty include the huge frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli depicting St. Sebastian (1464) and St. Augustine (1465).
Criterion (iii): San Gimignano bears exceptional testimony to medieval civilization since it groups together within a small area all the structures typical of urban life: squares and streets, houses and palaces, as well as wells and fountains. The frescoes by Memmo di Filippuccio commissioned by the township in 1303 to decorate the chambers of the Podestà in the Palazzo del Popolo are among the most frequently reproduced documents used to illustrate daily life of the early 14th century, down to its most domestic details.
Criterion (iv): The urban landscape of Florence, dominated by the towers of its public palazzos (Palazzo del Podestà and Palazzo della Signoria), shows that its public institutions prevailed over personal power. After 1250, the height of family tower houses was periodically reduced in the city. Whereas in San Gimignano, whose incastellamento goes back to 998, the 14 towers proudly rising above its palaces, preserve the look of a feudal Tuscan town controlled by rival factions ever ready for conflict. It illustrates a significant moment in history which cannot be found to the same extent in Florence, Sienna or Bologna despite the quality of their monuments.
21 окт 2023
