SAN GIMIGNANO is the paradigm of a medieval Tuscan city. The walls are intact and we still enter through the original gates; the defensive towers of local families which were obsolete even before the imposition of Florentine rule between 1348 and 1354 bristle like porcupine quills on the hill that was settled in early times. Named after a bishop of Modena, San Gimignano had become a free commune in the twelfth century. As in other Tuscan cities, the struggle between Guelf and Ghibelline was prolonged. Commercial links with Siena were strong in the fourteenth century and their artistic ramifications can still be experienced.
Much of the fabric of the medieval town survives. At its heart is the Piazza della Cisterna, flanked by a number of early houses and linked to the irregular Piazza del Duomo, which is dominated by the loggia’d Palazzo del Podestà, begun in 1239 and enlarged in 1337, by the restrained front of the Collegiata and by the towering Palazzo del Popolo, started in 1288, extended in 1323, and now the monument in which we are closest to the pulse of the medieval city. Communal pride is clearly expressed in the so-called Sala di Dante, where the poet urged the city fathers to adhere to a league of Tuscan Guelfs in 1300. The room is dominated by Lippo Memmi’s Maestà of 1317, which follows the pattern of Simone Martini’s fresco in the corresponding position in Siena; the lateral sections were tactfully restored by Benozzo Gozzoli in 1467. The Pinacoteca Civica is housed in the palace. The roundels of the Annunciation by Filippino Lippi are breathtakingly beautiful, and are placed on either side of the miraculously preserved tempera panel of the Madonna and Child with Saints by Pintoricchio. Most tourists rush by, intent on climbing the tower, which offers an unequalled view of the town.
The Collegiata is now entered from the courtyard to the south, through a vaulted loggia with a fresco of the Annunciation by Sebastiano Mainardi, Ghirlandaio’s brother-in-law and pupil. The cruciform interior is notable for its frescoes. On the wall of the right aisle is the prodigious sequence of scenes from the Passion of Christ which are traditionally attributed to Barna da Siena. Probably of before 1340, these are the grandest achievements of mid-Trecento Sienese painting. For Barna’s lyricism of line was matched by his narrative acuity and interest in emotion. On the opposite, left, wall is the slightly later cycle of Old Testament scenes by the most forceful and compositionally innovative of Barna’s immediate successors, Bartolo di Fredi. The entrance wall was decorated in 1465 by Gozzoli, whose Saint Sebastian, punctured by no fewer than thirty-six arrows, is flanked by pigmented statues of c. 1421 representing the Annunciation by Jacopo della Quercia; Gozzoli’s respect for these is implied by the fictive settings he devised for them. San Gimignano boasted its own saint, Fina. Her chapel, the last on the right, decorated by Ghirlandaio, is a perfect statement of disciplined late Quattrocento taste.
Despite the tourists and the shops catering for them, linger in the Via San Matteo, to the north of the Piazza del Duomo, which is lined with medieval houses. Before the Porta San Matteo turn to the right for the austere barn-like church of Sant’Agostino. Gozzoli’s frescoes of the life of the saint in the choir are particularly well preserved. He is an engaging artist with a genius for anecdote, and it no doubt suited him to work for patrons whose taste was somewhat outmoded by Florentine standards. He also decorated an altar on the left wall of the church with a mural of Saint Sebastian and, below this, a small fictive devotional panel of the Crucifixion. The high altarpiece, the Coronation of the Virgin, is by Piero del Pollaiuolo, younger and weaker brother of Antonio, here straining at the limits of his abilities.
Sant’Agostino: Benozzo Gozzoli, Crucifixion, fresco, 1464.
The supply of water is essential to any town, and San Gimignano was no exception. The Porta dei Fonti leads downhill to the Fonti, a medieval arcaded structure built against the hillside, with, at a lower level, a further arcaded basin. Where women once came for water and to contend with their laundry, an abandoned Vespa is now the only sign of life.
Palazzo Pubblico, with the arms of the Medici and the badge of San Bernardino.
