The commune of St. Gimignano, whose toponimo derives from the name of the saint that saved the city from the invasion of the Goths, is found in the province in Siena. Place to an altitude of 325 meters s.l.m., it entertains a population of around 7.000 inhabitants and numerous historical-artistic testimonies.
Inside this center, in fact, you/they can be admired he/she asked her of St. Iacopo and San Pietro, the Collegiate one of Saint Maria Assunta with the chapel of Thin Saint, the Cathedral, the Museum of Sacred Art, the Building of the Podestà and the Building Pratellesi.In antiquity St. Gimignano is a small village of the etrusco-Hellenistic period (III-II century a.C.).

I am there however testimonies also of a more remote presence. The sacred area of Pugiano, still visible in the valley of the stream you Concern, you/he/she should go up again in fact to the etrusco-archaic epoch. The legend on the foundation of the city attributes its birth instead to the installation of Silvio, one of the Roman patricians in escape after the bankrupt conspiracy against Catilina. The year of foundation would be the 63 a.C., when the suburb of Silvia rises.
In epoch medieval Silvia is consolidated by now and you/he/she has assumed the name of the bishop of Modena Gimignano, which the worth is attributed to have foiled with its apparition the invasion of the country from the barbaric hordes of Totila. Crossed from the street Francigena, St. Gimignano he/she sees to develop in his/her outskirtses an increasing number churches and convents.

The run, opened by the Longobardis along the ancient street Cassia and subsequently checked by the Franchis, it represents an authentic road artery that connects the north Europe with Rome.
In 1199 the city becomes an autonomous commune freeing himself/herself/itself from the dominion of the bishopric of Volterra. In this epoch, the suburb suffers the inside divisions among guelfi filopapali and ghibellini filoimperiali, that causes inside the territory an authentic "civil war." Among the numerous diplomats entertained from the city to resolve this fratricidal struggle that rages in Tuscany there is Dante Alighieri, present in 1300.

The plague of half XIV century increases the partner-economic crisis of the suburb, that in the 1354 ax to submit himself/herself/themselves to the authority of the Florentine Republic. From that moment St. Gimignano shapes him as one of the most important centers of the Florentine contado, although its demografic decline is evident. You give 13000 inhabitants of beginning XIV century he actually goes down to the 3000 of end Four hundred.
The I degrade of his/her social fabric and the collapse of the number of inhabitants you/they have done him that in the years the housebuilding has not intervened particularly on the structure of the historical center. In recent times, therefore, the citizens of St. Gimignano are realized to possess an authentic artistic patrimony to open sky. Recovered in all of his/her intact medieval structure, the commune has recently been enumerated among the protected patrimonies by the UNESCO.