San Gimignano, 2nd time around.
21 March 2008
After we left Volterra our bus drove us through the beautiful countryside to the other Tuscan hilltop town of San Gimignano. This was my second time to this city, but I had even less free time here than I did before! We decided to have lunch in Volterra and arrived in San Gimignano later than expected. All we had time for was a visit guided by Samuele to a very historic church, the church of St. Agostino which houses walls covered in frescoes dating to the 14th century. These are a very fragile type of painting, where an egg base is used and it is painted directly on the stone, thus making it difficult to preserve. We weren't allowed to take pictures so I have none to share. The paintings were amazingly descriptive. One entire wall was covered in boxes showing the life of Christ, with the opposite wall depicting the life of the creation story. What surprised me a little were the single walls high up depicting heaven with hell opposite. Heaven seemed fine, not anything spectacular, but hell was awful! If what is shown in that painting doesn't make you want to go to heaven.... I don't know what will.The structure of the church as a bit of an interesting story itself. Originally the front of the church was facing toward the outside of the city, but when the Medici took control of San Gimignano, they decided to change things. The changed the back to be the front, and added a transept and apse to make the church the shape of a cross (which was the style of the time). So the front now faces the center of the town, and there is 1 exit door on each side, which are now the front entrance doors; and there are 2 medium size round stained glass windows with 3 tiny narrow windows that remain from when it was the rear of the church. I hope that wasn't too confusing, I just found it interesting.
After the museum close and booted us out, we sat on the steps and Samuele told us about this history of San Gimignano. It turns out that San G was also an Etruscan town, 200-300 BC, but I think it was a necropolis, not like the booming Etruscan city that is now Volterra. Fast forwarding a bit, San G was known as a village of towers. I think there were originally 9 or 14 (sorry, I'm getting my numbers mixed up.) The towers were started in the 11th and 13th centuries and were not originally houses. They were used as fortresses for the important families of the time if/when the city was invaded. In my photos, notice that there are large double doors on the second floor. Back in their prime days, the entrance was 1-2 floors above ground level, what now are glass windows with shops was solid stone. When the family needed to be protected they would climb a ladder or "bridge" as Samuele called it up into their tower, the ladder would be pulled up inside and the doors would be sealed. I wish there were more intact today that I could see, sadly there are only about 3 tall ones left.
San Gimignano is a fairly small town, but it is very touristy. Even now there were a good number of tourists wandering around. The city has 1 main entrance: a giant stone archway with doors which is where everyone has to enter. There is a very famous gelateria in the main Piazza del Cisterna. We all got gelato and it was amazing.... really amazing. One of the best parts about it, was the price. In florence if you get a gelato near the duomo or the ponte vecchio, you will pay at the very least 3 Euro for the smallest cup or cone. At Gelateria Pluripremiata, a world champion gelateria, I splurged on a cone dipped in chocolate with 3 scoops of gelato: dark fruits of the forest, chocolate orange, and some amazing cream one, all for 2.50 euro!!
Goodbye San Gimignano, I'd like to see you again. Check out my photos here.
Labels: San Gimignano
