Wonderful San Gimignano - the medieval city of skyscrapers

Today, one of the most important signs of a metropolis is its development. Skyscrapers are built in the world's largest cities, and architects compete in the height of buildings. The Moscow City business center, La Défense in Paris, the skyscraper district in Dubai are huge territories that were once built from scratch, and now they make up the history of the rise of cities. And Manhattan generally became a household name, and so they call the areas with skyscrapers in many cities. However, skyscrapers are built not only in modern times, they were built in the Middle Ages. But, as today, then they performed the same function - to show the greatness of the city. And perhaps the most popular Manhattan of the Middle Ages is the Italian town of San Gimignano.

San Gimignano is located 56 kilometers from Florence, and today it is one of the main cities in Tuscany, which travelers visit without fail. Its horizon truly resembles the famous New York skyline: 14 stone towers rise above the city. Once upon a time there were several times more, more than seventy, which really turned the Italian town into mini-Manhattan.

The city, which gained independence in 1199, flourished for a long time. This was facilitated by the Francs Road, the most important trade route that lay right through San Gimignano. Then about 15 thousand people lived in it, which is twice as many as today. In addition, the city became an arena for the struggle of two warring families - Salvonchi and Ardingelli. Each of them tried to prove their strength and power by rebuilding more and more buildings and making them higher. The towers symbolized the wealth of the family, and after several decades more than seventy appeared here. These were real stone skyscrapers, many of them were more than sixty meters.

However, only 14 high-rise buildings could survive the catastrophes and wars, thanks to which San Gimignano is known today. Until 1348, the city flourished, but then it was struck by the plague, like all of Europe as a whole. This tragedy devastated a prosperous city, killing more than half of its inhabitants. Weakened by the Black Death, he came under the rule of Florence. Then, buildings in the Florentine style began to appear here, and many towers were reduced or even destroyed. Another pandemic of the plague in 1631 finally turned San Gimignano into the Italian outback. So it remained a crumbling provincial town, until at the end of the XIX century it was chosen by tourists. Today, travelers love San Gimignano for the fact that he managed to maintain such a unique medieval look.