San Gimignano historical timeline

San Gimignano's history has an unusual shape: a sharp rise, a catastrophe, and then nine hundred years of not being important enough to change.

1. 12th–13th centuries — the town grows wealthy on the Via Francigena, the pilgrim road from northern Europe to Rome, which runs through it. Tolls, lodging and banking pay for a building boom.
2. 1287 — the cistern is built that gives Piazza della Cisterna its name. Parts of the square's paving date from this century.
3. by the end of the Middle Ages — the town has seventy-two tower-houses. They are residences, strongrooms and status claims, built by competing families; the skyline is a record of rivalry rather than of defence.
4. 1346 — the well in Piazza della Cisterna is sunk.
5. 1348 — the plague. About half the townsfolk die.
6. after 1348 — the town submits to the rule of Florence. It never recovers its independence or its wealth, and that is precisely why its medieval fabric survives: there was never money or reason to replace it.
7. 14th–15th centuries — the Collegiata's fresco cycles are painted, and Ghirlandaio decorates the Chapel of Santa Fina. The art, like the towers, stays because nothing supersedes it.
8. 3 March 1966 — Vernaccia di San Gimignano is approved as a DOC, published in Gazzetta Ufficiale 110 of 6 May 1966. It is the first wine in Italy to hold the title: the Italian appellation system starts here.
9. 1990 — UNESCO inscribes the Historic Centre of San Gimignano at its 14th session, under cultural criteria (i), (iii) and (iv), over 13.88 hectares.
10. 9 July 1993 — Vernaccia is raised to DOCG by ministerial decree, published in GU 169 of 21 July 1993.