San Gimignano, Tuscany, Italy v1.0
San Gimignano is a small fortified town in the Province of Siena in Tuscany, Italy. In classical antiquity, several Etruscan and Roman settlements sat on the site of the present town. San Gimignano began to prosper in the High Middle Ages as it sat on the Via Francigena, one of the great pilgrimage routes to Rome from Northern Europe. Like most Italian cities, San Gimignano declared itself a republican commune after Imperial German power had eroded in Italy in the late 12th century. In this period, the town’s patriciate took up the Northern Italian habit of constructing magnificent residential fortress-towers, numbering 72 in total (the tower-building practice was a product of extreme Guelph-Ghibelline factional warfare rife in Northern Italian cities from the 12th to the 14th centuries. It was also a way of showing off how much c$sh and power you had). Of these, 14 remain today. This period of prosperity ended when the Black Death swept through the town in 1348, killing half its inhabitants. San Gimignano never recovered, and it was soon annexed by the Republic of Florence. After the unification of Italy in the 19th century, renewed interest in the town’s well-preserved medieval architecture. led to its development as an artistic and touristic center. Today it is a UNESCO heritage site, and one of Tuscany’s hidden gems.
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