.San Gimignano - the Cathedral

The memorial tablet on the facade between the two doors, reminds Pope Eugene III who on the 21 November 1148 consecrated this temple. The Church was substituting and incorporating a pre-exiting oratory dating back to the 9th or 10th century, the traces of which are visible along the interior walls of the facade. Of this basilica-planned church we do not know the name of the first builders, but the raising of the central nave is ascribed to the Lombard master Brunisemd and to the Sangimignanese Gamo Gamucci. The church underwent some adjustments, the most important one being that made in 1466 by the Florentine Giuliano da Maiano who transformed the presbyteral part by extending the choir and adding six chapels to the transept, three on each side. Giuliano da Maiano is also the author of the Chapel which keeps the remains of St. Fina. In the same period in front of St. Fina's was interrupted a wing of the Cloister leading to the cemetery.
Interior wall of the facade:
. remains of the apse of the pre-existing church.
. Our Lady of the Annunciation and Announcing Angel, two wooden statues by Jacopo delta Quercia (1421), polychrom-ed by Martino di Bartolomeo in 1426, as it is stated by an inscription on the base of the Virgin's statue. The classical plastic art of the Archangel Gabriel emphasizes the softness of the Madonna's face and figure. The two statues among the many wooden ones are certainly ascriba-ble to the Sienese sculptor. On the accounting books of the Collegiate Church they are mentioned as «by Maestro Jacopo of the Fount of Siena».
. St. Sebastian's martyrdom by Benozzo Gozzoli (1465); Gabriele d'Annunzio liked this fresco very much. On the pillars: St. Augustine, St. Bernard, St. Jerome, and St. Bernardine.
On the upper part:
. Last judgement by Taddeo di Bartolo (1393), with scenesof such a realism that becomes grotesque.
Left wall, entering the church:
. episodes of the Old Testament, from Genesis to the Book of Job by the Sienese artist Bartolo di Fredi (1367). The paintings were retouched during the eighteenth century but tests have alrealdy been made to bring them back to their original colours. Through the freshness of his art the painter has expressed biblical events lit up with folk-like poetry, a sign of the easiness and immediacy of his art. He was not worried by the important themes his brush was dealing with. He reproduced faces, dresses, manners of his time daily life to represent events and situations that reflect the history of man in all the epochs (see the main facts of Job's life).
Main altar:
. Ciborium and adoring Angels by Benedetto da Maiano (second half of the fifteenth century).
. St. Sebastian's martyrdom by Benozzo Gozzoli (1465); Gabriele d'Annunzio liked this fresco very much. On the pillars: St. Augustine, St. Bernard, St. Jerome, and St. Bernardine.
On the upper part:
. Last judgement by Taddeo di Bartolo (1393), with scenes of such a realism that becomes grotesque.
left wall, entering the church:
. episodes of the Old Testament, from Genesis to the Book of Job by the Sienese artist Bartolo di Fredi (1367). The paintings were retouched during the eighteenth century but tests have alrealdy been made to bring them back to their original colours. Through the freshness of his art the painter has expressed biblical events lit up with folk-like poetry, a sign of the easiness and immediacy of his art. He was not worried by the important themes his brush was dealing with. He reproduced faces, dresses, manners of his time daily life to represent events and situations that reflect the history of man in all the epochs (see the main facts of Job's life).
Main altar:
. Ciborium and adoring Angels by Benedetto da Maiano(second half of the fifteenth century).
Right wall:
. Life of Christ by Barna da Siena (towards the half of the fourteenth century) «one of the most conspicuous moments of the Sienese painting in the fourteenth century» (Enzo Carli). Barna died while painting the crucifixion scene. He fell down from the scaffolding he was working on, while stepping back to look at his painting. Vasari wrote: «'He fell down from the scaffolding in such a strange way that he was crushed inside and so indecently broken that two days later he passed away from this life». A pupil of Barna finished the work. His name was Giovanni d'Ascia-no. The scene of the crucifixion was damaged by war events on July 1944. The painting is strongly and highly dramatic. Note the scene of Judah's kiss, of Christ going up to Calvary, above all the Crucifixion.
The painting of Barna is vigorous and his brush although that of a Siene-se, does not get lost in the preciousness of colours. The artist and the onlooker take part in the scene and this participation is originated by the penetration into the bottom -of the figures more than by the lecture of the events. It has been said that the results attained by the artist are those of a «sacred representation". Beside the Crucifixion:
. Chapel of St. Fina, designed by Giuliano da Maiano, was begun in 1468 and finished in 1475. The beautiful altar is by Benedetto da Maiano, one of Giuliano's brothers. A great artist, A. Rossellino, gave some hints to carry out the chapel.
The wall-paintings are by Domenico Ghirlan-daio and represent two events of St. Fina's life: Pope Gregory appears to the Saint and the obsequies for her death. Sebastiano Mainardi, a Sangimignanese painter and a relative of Ghirlandaio, painted the frescoes of the vault (1477). The Cahpel was consecrated in 1488 by Niccolo, Bishop of Pistoia. Four artists among the most famous of the Florentine fifteenth century, made of this room a real jewel. Three of them were Giuliano and Benedetto da Maiano and Domenico Ghirlandaio.
Friar Giovanni del Coppo, the first biographer of the Saint, buried here, related that Fina's parents, Cambio and Impe-ria, chose that name for their little daughter because the mother, while expecting the baby had a feeling that she was about to give life to a particularly precious being "delicate, fine" and so Fina had this name. Visiting the chapel one receives the impression of such finesse.
Looking up from the entrance, on a lunette of the nave arch, we see a fresco of the first half of the fourteenth century ascribed to Niccolo di Segna representing St. Gregory appearing to St. Fina dying. It is the first iconographical testimony of the veneration of the Saint.