Campatelli tower-house

The Campatelli tower-house is an 18th century palazzo that encompasses one of the famous towers of San Gimignano. The construction of the original property – the Medieval tower – dates from mid-12th century: a typical tower-house on the Pisan model, it was initially 11m in height and was then raised up to reach the 28m we see today.

The height of the towers was increased in order to display the power of the local families, but in certain cases, such as this, the towers could serve as actual residences, with the rooms arranged vertically on wooden floors that have today been partially reconstructed.

Over the centuries, various adjacent constructions were added to the tower, and by the mid-18th century the building resembled a typical palazzo with a Florentine-syle intonaco facade. In the early 19th century, the Campatellis, a landowning family of entrepreneurs, acquired the entire building, transforming it into a traditional upper-middle-class house, to which they would come to manage their affairs and the income they received from the lands they owned just outside the town, or to spend their holidays.

In 2005, Lydia Campatelli, the last owner of the property, donated the Campatelli Tower-House to FAI on condition that it be opened up to the public, together with the furnishings and the collection that it be opened up to the public, together with the furnishing and the collections contained within it, including the pictures by the famous Florentine artist Guido Peyron (1898-1960), the donor’s uncle.

Today, the Campatelli Tower-House offers a rich, multi-faceted visitor experience, featuring fascinating content and immersive screenings. This allows visitors to get the most out of a trip to the town and to become enthused about its history, art and landscape.

The visit begins in the Attic Spaces and the Tower, where you are treated to a screening of A Thousand Years in San Gimignano. Which brings the walls of the house to life. The film enters into a dialogue with a dazzling alabaster model of the town, in a captivating combination of audio-visual evocations that signals the start of your journey in search of San Gimignano.

On the same floor, you will come across a space where you can browse books on the town and the surrounding area, and discover – in a small, temporary exhibition – a number of compelling items from the archive of the family who lived in Casa Campatelli.

The visit continues on the piano nobile, which has been remodeled to resemble the way it would have looked in the late 19th century, with original furnishings and objects d’art from the house, to give you the chance to savour the atmosphere of an earlier age. As you make your way between public rooms and bedrooms, where you will find paintings, documents, decorative pieces and photographs collected by the donor, which illustrate the people who lived here and their experiences, as well as the more general lifestyle of a typical upper-middle-class Tuscan family of the time.

The Piazza della Cisterna is the most beautiful and famous piazza in all of San Gimignano. It is enclosed by a wall of nobility houses and medieval towers. It marks the junction between the two most important roads: the Francigena and the road leading from Pisa to Siena. It was the heart of San Gimignano, forming, along with the Piazza Duomo, the cornerstone of the medieval city. While Piazza Duomo was the religious and political centre, the Piazza della Cisterna was the place dedicated to popular culture, with a marketplace and a site for holding public performances, festivals, and tournaments.

Its appearance is attributable to the 13^th-century layout undertaken in accordance with the rules set by the Ghibelline comune. It is shaped like an inverted triangle and takes advantage of the natural slope of the land. It is completely paved in brick and connects to the Piazza del Duomo with an open passageway.

Its name comes from a water cistern found at the centre of the site, where an octagonal travertine well forms a pivot point in the piazza. It offers a view out through the straight passageway of Arco dei Becci, one of the gates in the ancient medieval wall.

Next to the gate are the charming Torri dei Becci and Torri dei Cugnanesi. Nearer the well are very important buildings: the Palazzo Razzi, with its splendid two-light mullioned windows; Casa Salvestrini, which at one time was a hospital and is now a hotel; and Palazzo Tortoli, which is next to the “severed” tower that belonged to the Capitano del Popolo (it was cut down during struggles between rival families).

To the north are the Palazzo dei Cortesi and the charming Torre del Diavolo, with the unusual name and its unsettling connection to a mysterious legend.

After the Case dei Cattani on the same side, the passageway leads to the Piazza del Duomo. The opposite side of the piazza consists of different palazzos with façades constructed with different coloured materials. They all belonged to the nobility. To the west, on the side that borders the Loggia del Comune, are the Torri Gemelle of the Ardinghelli and the tower of the Palazzo Pellari.

From the piazza one enters the narrow Vicolo dell'Oro, an alley so named because there were goldsmiths and “hammerers” (artisans who created the very thin gold leaf used to cover the wood bases for polittici, the frescoed tables with the images of the saints, that decorated the church altars).