In the town of San Gimignano, in Tuscany, there is a very unusual and special museum. Called San Gimignano 1300, this museum displays a beautiful, large and super detailed miniature reconstruction of the town during the Middle Ages, allowing us to see it as it would have looked like at the height of its splendour. This special miniature was created by a team of artists and architects. Located near the centre of the town and free of charge to visit, it's a lovely way to spend an afternoon, wandering around the exhibit and marvelling at the astounding reconstruction. It's also an especially engaging way to involve children in becoming interested in the history of the area. Just find a luxury villa in San Gimignano and stop by the museum to see how the town used to look.
The models are made of ceramic which is fired in the kiln and then painted carefully. They are unexpectedly and carefully detailed with each one being worked on by teams for long periods of time. Set within a large, stone-walled room, the works are exhibited with special lighting and sound effects that reproduce everyday medieval town sounds. One views the work from the vantage of a Medieval traveller standing on a nearby hilltop. Depicted is daily life in San Gimignano at the time and, importantly, all 72 of the famous towers which once stood in the town. Many remain today and more than survive in most Italian towns but this gives you an idea of their former glory. The model captures the height of this glory as the town was in 1300 before the Black Plague in 1348 brought it all to an abrupt halt.
It is a 1:100 scale reproduction which takes up over 27 square meters of space and used over a ton of clay from nearby Montelupo to create the work. Countless hours of intense historical, architectural and technical research was necessary before any work was actually begun and a team of artists (lead by Michelangelo and Raffaello Rubino) worked on it for over 20,000 hours.
Adjacent to the exhibition of the model is a contemporary art exhibit with works by local artists and several of the same artists that made medieval San Gimignano.
If you're visiting San Gimignano, this little museum is the best way to get a real sense of the medieval city and how it once looked before just 14 of its famous towers were all that remained standing, as is the case today.
Adjacent to the exhibition of the model is a contemporary art exhibit with works by local artists and several of the same artists that made medieval San Gimignano.
If you're visiting San Gimignano, this little museum is the best way to get a real sense of the medieval city and how it once looked before just 14 of its famous towers were all that remained standing, as is the case today.
Photo credits
picture 1: Fracund / CC BY-SA 3.0;
picture 2: Fracund / CC BY 3.0;
picture 1: Fracund / CC BY-SA 3.0;
picture 2: Fracund / CC BY 3.0;
