The village of San Gimignano, despite some recoveries eight-novecenteschi, is mostly intact in appearance two-fourteenth century and is one of the best examples in Europe of urban organization of the Communal Age.
Place on a high hill in the Val d’Elsa, was certainly inhabited by the Etruscans, at least from the III century a.C, for its strategic position. On the slopes of the hill of the town (624 m a.s.l.) there are the ruins of Castelvecchio, a village of Longobard age.San Gimignano is especially famous for its medieval towers that still dominate the landscape, which have earned the nickname of the Manhattan of the middle ages. Of 72 between towers and tower-houses, existing in the golden period of the town, it remained twenty-five in 1580 and today there are sixteen, with other scapitozzate intravedibili in the urban fabric. The oldest is the Torre Rognosa, which is 51 meters high, while the highest is the Torre del Podestà, also called Torre Grossa, 54 meters.
San Gimignano is a small agricultural town famous for wine production of Vernaccia and the cultivation of saffron. The Vernaccia di San Gimignano is one of the finest white wines, is produced in a small area of Tuscany between Siena, Pisa and Florence coinciding with the municipal territory of San Gimignano. It is well known and appreciated throughout the world and was the first Italian wine to receive the mark of Denomination of Controlled Origin (DOC) in 1966.
