In the mid-13th century, the number of tower-houses was a good indicator of a city’s wealth. These buildings, originally constructed as defensive structures, eventually became the exclusive residence of the nobility. Erected in the city centre, the towers were built by the most powerful families: the higher they rose towards the sky, the more prestige the owner acquired. Since there were many aristocratic families in a town, sometimes this resulted in a real competition for the tallest tower. This is why, not infrequently, communes had to deliberate limits. Over the centuries, medieval Italian cities changed profoundly. Only a small number of the tower-houses that populated them survive, confined to those centres that time, earthquakes and wars have failed to erode. Among these, San Gimignano, in Tuscany, still offers a clear picture of what a medieval town looked like.
The town on the Via Francigena
Archbishop Sigeric of Canterbury, after making a pilgrimage to Rome, noted in his travel diary the 79 places at which he had obtained hospitality1. Thus, in 990, he left us a vivid snapshot of that route called the Via Romea or Francigena, that allowed people to reach the tomb of Peter2. From here many continued to Apulia and embarked for Jerusalem.
Among the stages Sigeric kept track of along the way, there was one called Sce Gemiane, located at a relief known as Monte della Torre. On that hill, set to guard the road and the pleasant landscapes of Val d’Elsa, stood a fortification belonging to the bishop of Volterra, Adalardo, as attested by a donation from the king of Italy Hugh of Provence in 9293. The document reports that the castle was “prope Sancto Geminiano adiacente“: in fact, just downstream stood the village, which we have mention of in 9494. At that time, the town of San Gimignano was surrounded by a first fortified wall with three main entrance gates5.
The birth of the free Commune
Being located along the Via Francigena, the town of San Gimignano could take advantage of trade opportunities. The fertile lands around were used for the production of commodities highly requested by merchants, such as saffron. Hence, it soon attained considerable wealth, which in the mid-12th century permitted the town to free itself from Volterra bishopric. With the appointment of four local consuls, in fact, in 1147 San Gimignano assumed full control of its territory6. The following year, the city’s Duomo, or Collegiate Church of Santa Maria Assunta, was consecrated under the name of “Pieve of the People” in the presence of Pope Eugene III7. This was, in fact, the birth of the free Commune, even though the election of the first podestà did not take place until 1199.
The town of San Gimignano then experienced a period of rapid expansion that saw the development of the two hamlets of San Giovanni and San Matteo outside the walls. An extension interested the early 10th-century wall. In the Statute of 1255 we find evidence that a new urban layout, including a perimeter fortification, had been under way for several decades.8. In 1239, work began on rebuilding the old Palazzo del Podestà, which took on its current appearance.
Guelphs and Ghibellines
However, this desire had to contend with internal conflicts between the families of the town. Historically, the government of San Gimignano was led by the Ghibelline faction, often aligned with the politics of nearby Siena. But at the beginning of the 13th century, there were reports of riots that prompted the Ghibellines, led by the Ardinghelli family, to attack the homes of the Guelph Salvucci family. This discord continued for decades until the city came under siege by Florence. The enemies demolished the newly built walls. It took until 1261, a year after the Sienese victory at Montaperti, before they could be rebuilt9. The new layout, which also incorporated Monte della Torre and the high ground of Montestaffoli, is what we observe today.
The town of San Gimignano and its towers
The flourishing economy of San Gimignano, due to its proximity to the Via Francigena and its trade, enriched the local nobility, who demonstrated their social power by building imposing tower-houses. Of the original seventy-two, fourteen survive today, which is still a considerable number.
The Torre Rognosa and the prohibition of the Podesta
These include the Torre Rognosa, which rises from the Old Palace of the Podestà with its fifty-two meters in height. The structure, erected around 1200, owes its name to its use as a prison. The Torre Rognosa was for a long time the highest tower in the town because the Podestà, in order to limit competition among noble families, imposed in 1255 that its height should not be exceeded10. Although with difficulty, the ban was enforced for the two towers of the Salvucci family, dated in those years, and for those of the Ardinghelli family in Piazza della Cisterna. The prohibition was also being strictly observed by ordering the demolition of the meters exceeding the legal threshold.
In any case, by around 1300 the issue was probably no longer so relevant. The Podestà himself had the fifty-four-meter Torre Grossa erected. The building stands today next to Palazzo Nuovo, formerly Palazzo del Popolo, in Piazza Duomo. Torre Grossa is characterized at its base by a corridor with a barrel vault and hanging arches that support a parapet at the top.
The other towers of San Gimignano
The elegant façade of the Torre Chigi, with its lower section clad in stone and upper section in brick, also overlooks Piazza Duomo. Near the Arco dei Becci, the southern gate of the 10th-century city walls, are the Torre dei Becci, the Torre dei Cugnanesi and the Torre dei Campitelli. The towers of the Palazzo Pellari, Pettini and Ficarelli are also worth mentioning. A curious legend surrounds the Torre del Diavolo (Devil’s Tower) in Piazza della Cisterna. Upon his return from a long journey, the owner reportedly found the tower taller than when he had left, attributing this change to the work of the devil. The tower opens onto the ground floor through a double doorway. This passageway once provided access to the street of goldsmiths. A series of corbels at the top suggest that there was once a wooden balcony.
The church of Saint Francis and the knights orders in San Gimignano
Towers dominate the urban center of San Gimignano, capturing the attention of the visitor who turns his gaze upward. But the walls of the town hide other treasures: they are those of history and symbolism. Walking along Via San Giovanni, there is the façade of a church, but what a church it no longer is. In 1787 a private individual bought Saint Francis, a 13th-century house of worship and a dispensary of the Hospitallers of Saint John, demolishing it. Only its facade is intact.11.
The church of Saint Francis in the town of San Gimignano
The church consisted of a single rectangular hall, without an apse, covered by wooden beams. Of the original Romanesque façade, inspired by the Pisan style, only the lower part covered with travertine blocks, interspersed with two bands of gabbro, survives. The façade is marked by five blind arches, delimited by small columns with capitals. The entrance portal, rich in symbolism, is located at the level of the central arch. One of the keystones of the archivolt is carved with a ram’s head. As the animal was offered in sacrifice in place of Isaac, so Christ sacrificed himself for all humanity. It is interesting to note that Aries is also the first constellation of the Zodiac. The sign heralds the arrival of spring and, figuratively, the rebirth of the cosmos.
A rope bounds the arch of the intrados. The knots placed at the level of the belt course, now at the top of the façade, recall its meaning. The symbolic motif alludes to the bond between God and man. God providing grace and protection from the perils of travel to pilgrims in transit on the Via Francigena. Next to the knots, on the side-by-side ashlars, are symbols with Christological significance: some five-petaled flowers and the vesica piscis. In the portal lunette is the cross of the Hospitallers of Saint John, now the Knights of Malta.
San Jacopo al Tempio
This was not the only monastic-chivalric order present in San Gimignano in the Middle Ages. In fact, the church of San Jacopo al Tempio, built near the town gate of the same name, belonged to the Knights Templar.
The Knights Templar established a mansio there in the early 13th century, with the intention of assisting pilgrims travelling along the Via Francigena. The first mention of it is in a document dated July 122112, reporting the presence of a hospitale de Templo. Today, nothing remains of that Order in San Gimignano, which tragically dissolved in 1312, except for a cross pattée on the lintel of San Jacopo, a clue to a glorious and lost past.
Samuele Corrente Naso
Notes
- Sigeric’s Itinerary, British Library, London, catalogued as MS Cotton Tiberius B. V, ff. 23v – 24r. ↩︎
- In the Actum Clusio of 876, preserved at Abbazia di San Salvatore, the words “via Francigena” appear for the first time. ↩︎
- Regestum Volaterranum, 20, Pavia, 30 Agosto 929 in F. Schneider, Regestum Volaterranum, Roma, 1907. ↩︎
- Regestum Volaterranum, 30, Volterra, Settembre 949: “[…] et res pertinentes plebe ecclesia S. Johanni prope burgo Sancti Geminiani in Marciniano”. ↩︎
- R. Razzi, San Gimignano e le sue mura, San Gimignano, 2020. ↩︎
- E. Fiumi, San Gimignano, Olschki, Firenze, 1961. ↩︎
- L. Pecori, Storia di San Gimignano, Firenze, 1853. ↩︎
- S. Diacciati, L. Tanzini, Lo statuto di San Gimignano del 1255, Firenze, Olschki, 2016. ↩︎
- Ibidem note 6. ↩︎
- Ibidem note 8. ↩︎
- R. Stopani, Chiese medievali della Valdelsa. I territori della via Francigena tra Siena e San Gimignano, Empoli, Editori dell’Acero, 1996. ↩︎
- Ibidem. ↩︎
