San Gimignano is located in the province of Siena and for the characteristic medieval architecture of its historic center (emblem of the whole of Toscana) was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The site of San Gimignano, despite some eight-twentieth-century restorations, is mostly intact in the two-fourteenth-century appearance and is one of the best examples in Europe of urban organization of the communal age. 

It stands on a hill in Elsa valley and was probably founded by the Etruscans in the third century. a.C., definitely chosen for strategic issues. In the Middle Ages it played a role of considerable importance because it was located along one of the routes of the Via Francigena. In 1199, at the height of its economic splendor, the village gained its municipal independence compared to the bishops of Volterra. There was no lack of infighting between Guelphs and Ghibellines, but in the 13th century, under the Ghibellines, the period of greatest economic splendor dates back, which was based on the trade of fine local agricultural products both in Italy and abroad. In May 1300 the city also hosted Dante Alighieri as a representative of the Lega Guelfa Toscana. The fourteenth century was a century of crisis that did not spare San Gimignano: troubled by internal struggles, it was heavily hit by the black plague and the famine of 1348, which decimated the population. In 1351 the exhausted city spontaneously surrendered itself to Firenze.

San Gimignano is above all famous for the medieval towers that still stand out on its panorama. Of the 72 towers and tower-houses, existing in the golden period of the Commune, there remained twenty-five in 1580 and today there remain sixteen, with other unseen in the urban fabric. The oldest is the Rognosa tower, which is 51 meters high, while the highest is the tower of Podestà, also called Grossa tower, 54 meters. A regulation of 1255 forbade private individuals to erect towers higher than the Rognosa tower (which at the time was the highest), even though the two most important families, Ardinghelli and Salvucci, built two slightly lower towers of almost equal size, to prove their power.