José F. Grave de Peralta
SAN GIMIGNANO: The Medieval "Miami" of ... Bankers, Pilgrims, and Knights Templar
Totila
sacking Florence,
from a Medieval codex about the invasion of the Goths in the VI century A.D.
​ The Libreria Cesaretti on Via di Pié di Marmo -- the street of the marble foot -- could easily be one of those rare book shops described by Charles Dickens at the beginning of a novel. But the huge, sandaled foot that gives the street its name and is located adjacent to the Libreria in Rome belonged to a colossal statue of the Egyptian goddess of wisdom, Isis, which stood with her two strong legs astride right here in the days of Cleopatra, when this neighborhood was the sacred precinct of Egyptian, not Roman, deities. In fact, quite often I have heard the Cesarettis use that back to the future salespitch to charm their non-Italian clients with the song of the Nile. I have been there when they have done that!
Fine, I confess: I have fallen these booksellers' under their spell numerous times since I set up my artist's studio not far from the colossal foot, in another quadrant of the same Isis and Osiris quarter. For example, the bibliophile Cesaretti duo recently sold me a complete edition of the 14th-century Golden Legend of Jacob Vorragine, the handbook of miracles and sufferings consulted by creative artists through the ages in Christian Europe before they painted or sculpted in their masterpieces the sagas of Saint Helena and the search for the True Cross, Saint Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins, and Saint George and the Dragon. I also bought in the libreria a 1970s coffee table volume published by the Montepaschi Bank of Siena​ telling the story of Agostino Chigi the Magnificent, who became the sort of Golden Boy of Papal bankers in Renaissance Rome, so they could launch a Crusade to liberate Constantinopolis from the Ottoman Turks or hire Donato Bramante to break ground for the new St. Peter's Basilica so pilgrims could fulfill their vows and duly pay their respect to the apostle's relics on Vatican Hill. These, yes, were pricey texts.
But one day I passed in front of the marble foot of the goddess sister of Osiris and noticed a "SAN GIMIGNANO" guidebook glaring at me like a soldier in shining armor in the slightly shabby crate of discounted items that is typically outside the door.
SAN GIMIGNANO: The town's name was writ large across the top border of the cover picture of the popular tourist location. I took the publication from the 5 € container, quickly perused its pages filled with piazzas and church interiors -- and noticed, too, on the back cover what seemed to be the portrait of a mitred bishop wearing a deep red church regalia and balancing on his lap what seemed like a modern city of skyscrapers!
"That looks like ... Miami!" I thought, as I went inside the shop, greeted the owners, and bought the publication.
"Do I need this book?" I mused, followed by a silent. My Rome-guiding life flashed before me, and I remembered having visited that part of Siena around ten years ago and not "explained" it too well to a couple of tourists from St. Augustine, Florida, with whom I eventually became good friends. Mrs. Kathy, the wife, who unfortunately passed away a few years later, may have been in her early fifties back then, looked quite strong and agile from the waist up, but was using a cane when she, her husband Jim, and I climbed ascended the sidewalk of the Viale Vaticano on our way to the entrance to the museums and Sistine Chapel. Not far into the tour, as I recall, while we admired the musical angels frescoes of Melozzo da Forlì, Kathy told me she was a firm believer in miracles. "Of course Jim and I are here to see the art, José," she confessed, "but our trips here are truly pilgrimages. I am going to get rid of this walking stick!" she assured me as she swung the cane in the air, defiantly.
That day, after the Vatican tour, I jokingly shared with the St. Augustinian clients that I myself was waiting for the miraculous, since I did not yet hold an official guiding license to explain to folks like them about Michaelangelo without being stopped by the venues' museum guards. In 2012, guards were getting more and more strict about us unlicensed guides.
But here is where the plot thickened.
We are back in 2011 now, not 2025 as I write this story.
It wasn't long before this great St. Augustine couple hired me to guide them in Florence and several other Tuscan locations, the last of which was the City of the Hundred Towers, named after a VI century A.D. bishop from Modena who according to tradition led the townspeople to victory over Tottila the Goth, son of Theodoric.
It was summer, and I warned my Floridians that the town would probably be flooded with others like us, but with kids and dogs and camping equipment, but Jim, Kathy, were excited to see the two or three churches of the Knights Templar that had been spared, architecturally at least, after their order was suppressed by the Catholic Church. Kathy, in fact, was an avid reader of the new Dan Brown Da Vinci bestsellers, and she was looking forward to seeing symbols of the Holy Grail in the churches of the city. With all this and more in our conversation inside the car, I was not surprised when all of a sudden Kathy let out a gleeful laugh from her back seat in the van and said it was time for her to give me a gift.. She then took out from her purse what she said was not only a gift for me, but a different kind of guidebook. "I really think you need to read this book, José. Jim will tell you it is one of my most treasured texts. "
"Oh please open it," she protested, when she saw me place the gift-wrapped package on the seat between her husband, who was driving, and me. I saw that Jim smiled but said nothing, and concentrated on the road. "Please take a look at the book. When we get to San Gimignanco you can explain to me all about the different style used by Sienese and Florentine artists who painted there, but this is also important!"
The wrapped gift she was giving me as homework was none other than Many Lives, Many Masters, by Dr,. Brian Weiss.
Fast-forward to the Cesaretti's book bin in 2025: somewhat sadly, all I could recall now about our paseo was a mercatino at the foot of the duomo's great stairs, where I bought a small figure of a clay angel made by an elementary student of the town, whose mischievous, somewhat crossed-eyed face is not exactly that of the heavenly host Dante describes in the PARADISO. Moreover, Kathy passed away some time ago, or else I would be able to ask her to send a photo or two that she took that day from atop one of the Ghibelline towers or inside the duomo. For the rest of it, during that Tuscan tour, it seems to me now that Kathy went on and on about Dr. Weiss's "many lives" testimonies from his patients, or, similarly, she kept repeating and assured Jim of it, that she and I had met in a past life and would be sure to meet again in a next incarnation. ​​
Two of the numerous Ghibelline faction Medieval towers, belonging to the Savellis
San Gimignano
The Rognosa Tower of the Guelph faction family dates from 1200
San Gimignano
SAN GIMIGNANO blessing, as he holds the town of San Gimignano on his lap
Back cover
Edizioni Il Furetto, 2000
Part Two
The rest is history.
Sometime in October of this year -- I write this memoir on Christmas Day 2025 -- I received a text message via WhatsApp from a lady in Miami inquiring about my touring availabilty in December. "My husband and I are very good friends of a couple you know very well." Both her voice and their names sounded very familiar to me. She continued: "We are coming with my two children. They are grown up. And even though they each have their own families, my husband and I are bringing them without their spouses and children, so we can visit with you the main sites in Rome in a more meaningful way." She paused. "But here's the thing," she added. "Do you think that on the final day of our week of tours with you, you could take us to either of two places, one, the sanctuary of Padre Pío in Puglia, or else... Siena and San Gimignano?" My husband and I have both had some health scares this year, and we wanted to thank Padre Pío for our recovery. "Look, Pepe, we trust your sense of what's best. Sure, our idea to go pray to Padre Pío has to do with our health. But, hey, let's think this will not be the last time we go to Italy. This is Jubilee Year, and God knows we are going to pass through more than one Holy Door with you. Let's go with Tuscany!"
Hmmm, I thought, my visit to San Gimignano was 12 years ago and I should be able to update what I saw there then. All I remembered of the town was that the duomo's two side walls were covered from floor to ceiling with frescoes. Oh yes, I recall we saw from the outside the Templar Church of San Giacomo, and it unfortunately was closed then, so Kathy and especially Jim could not see the interior of his namesake's 12th-century chapel. I also recalled that the Duomo's two side walls were covered in frescoes.
This Florida client, too, whose name was Ina, had a sort of matter-of-fact manner in the way she spoke, and as we honed in on the specifics of their Rome walks in my proposed itinerary, focused on the starting and finishing times of our schedule and other real-time details of the sort. So far, there were no "angels" in the architecture, and when we ultimately agreed on all the details of the Roman tours that we would make together, I promised her that I would secure us a good driver for the journey and most likely go there myself prior to our meeting in December to review the site without the tourist overload.
Lo and behold, on this exploratory trip, using the Cesarettis' bargain book, I felt like I was entering a different town from that of 10 years before. So this, I thought, is still the famous Via Francigena -- or French Road -- upon which Gimignano grew across the ages, when pilgrims following a monk named Sigeric, all the way from Canterbury, England, generation after generation, traversed northern Europe on their way to Rome and even Jerusalem. Up ahead on this same mainly brick masonry thoroughfare, beyond the shops of somewhat uninteresting ceramics items and leather bags, in the ground floors of what one could see had been grand Medieval palazzos turned into b&b's for the summer tourists, I could see several of the famous skyscraper towers built towards the end of the Middle Ages by the rivaling Guelph and Ghibelline families who lived here. And then, on the right of the Via Francigena thoroughfare, I was amazed to see in its lovely 13th-century white travertine marble, what Gianna Pontini, the author of the guidebook identifies as the magione or banking office of the Knights Templar. "Kathy and Jim would have been fascinated by this façade I sighed.
My Miami group will be taken by it too, especially when they learn how important the members of the order was during the times of the Crusades and the perilous journeys to the various pilgrim sitesthis will begin to form a familiar jigsaw-puzzle sort of resonance.
​
​
The Knights of the Temple were very instrumental in creating and maintaining safe travel routes for pilgrims and for the money to and from their home cities and sites like Jerusalem, Rome, or San Gimignano. Sure, the title of the magical discount bin book of the Cesarettis was cheesy: San Gimignano: A Medieval Dream." However, author Gianna Coppini's text and vividly color photos guided me by the hand from south to north along the main thoroughfare and city blocks of this rather touristy Tuscan destination, and after my two days and nights gave me the confidence and topics needed to offer my Miami visitors an adequate tour.
Knights Templar church or house façade
12th-century
San Gimignano
How could I relate the layered narrative of the Templars, the Crusades, and the Guelphs and Ghibellines to the Rome of Michaelangelo and Julius Caesar so that 0ur 4-hour ride with a private driver felt like it was not simply an appendage of the Colosseum and St.Peter's Basilica?
Somewhat after three o'clock, I proceeded to go meet Massimo, the owner of the pensione, and he drove up to the door of "La Donna Nobile," all smiles and hospitality. "Did this b&b exist when the Via Francigena's pilgrim traffic was at its height?" I asked jokingly.
​
"Actually no, José," he replied as he photocopied my I.D. and inquired as to why I had decided to visit the town during winter. "My wife, who is from here, runs the b&b. Sure. it has a lot of history, but I prefer to work in my vineyards and make my wine, the famous vernaccio!"
"Yes, I uderstand Dante calls it the white queen of wines," I quipped to let him know I knew of its pedigree.
​
"Oh sure, you are going to finds various references to Dante Aleghieri in Gimignano, but I am from Poggibonsi, where you changed buses coming from Florence today. I bet you didn't see any walls from the Middle Ages there, did you? It is an open-minded town. Gimignano has two rings of walls! Sure it has a lot of stories. But I always tell my wife that there is too much gossip here, because of the walls, which frame it like the stories of the Divine Comedy!"
​
I understood quickly who La Donna Nobile was! And to soften the conversation I asked him to explain why the street of the pensione was named La Via delle Romite. "Does the name refer to pilgrims travelers going to Rome? In English they were called romers...?"
​
"Hermits, José. That is what I am telling you. This street was lined on both sides by people who were very religious, in the Middle Ages, and at some poing in their lives, they came here alone -- like hermits -- to pay for their sins in their solitude. And therefore they were called eremite, hermits. La Via delle Remite!"
By the time my two-day study visit to the Manhattan of the Middle Ages came to an end, and I took my two buses back to Florence to then ride the train back to Rome, I almost information overload, for the day I would bring my lady from Miami and her family to visit the town.
​​
Maestá (detail)
Town Council Hall
San Gimignano
Lippo Memmi, Benozzo Gozzoli, and helpers
fresco, 1300s
Part Three
The two months flew by quite quickly, and before I knew it, the Miami family phoned from their hotel to tell me in their clear Cuban Spanish that they were excited to meet me on the following day -- at the Pantheon. After a brief introduction about the Piazza della Rotonda of the great round temple of all the gods built by Emperor Hadrian, I told them with enthusiasm that I had done more that study my books and notes in preparation for their week with me, and had in fact gone to Siena one weekend and to San Gimignano another. But when we came out of the Pantheon and headed for the next venue of churches and piazzas scheduled for that first day, I thought to myself that I should allow the 5 of us to get to know each other and that somewhere in the context of our several days together, the way to make San Gimignano naturally flow out of our Roman walks together would suggest itself withought forcing it.
After the Pantheon, however, before proceeding to the next area of our tour, feeling that perhaps they were still somewhat frazzled by the jetlag and that they needed some more get acquainted time, we went to grab a cup of coffee at La Tazza d'Oro in an angle of the piazza.
Who would have thought, however, that right as we approached the coffeeshop and I told them how I still missed my Miami-Bustelo-brand café cubano, there, in under the Roman sun, I saw a close friend of mine, also from Miami, and a medical doctor like my client, standing there! It was Victor Hugo, and as he greeted me with laughter and amazement, he almost yelled out: "Doctor! What are you doing here? Do you know José, too?"
The Knights of the Temple were very instrumental in creating and maintaining safe travel routes for pilgrims and for the money to and from their home cities and sites like Jerusalem, Rome, or San Gimignano. Sure, the title of the magical discount bin book of the Cesarettis was cheesy: San Gimignano: A Medieval Dream." However, author Gianna Coppini's text and vividly color photos guided me by the hand from south to north along the main thoroughfare and city blocks of this rather touristy Tuscan destination, and after my two days and nights gave me the confidence and topics needed to offer my Miami visitors an adequate tour.
Most likely, either my client, Kathy, or one of the angels she talked about more and more often in the course of our friendship over some 6 or 7 years, sight unseen came and sat with me while I drank my very hot caffé latte in the Trastevere kitchen where I rent my room in Rome. I sighed in dismay to think that I hadn't a hold of the thread's end hidden inside the yarn of my San Gimignano notes. The names of Niccolo Machiavelli, Pope Eugene III, Dante, and the Via Francigena were a huge bundle to "dump" on my Miami tourists, especially considering that this was not a scholarly lesson before an exam, but rather a relaxing visit to a Tuscan hillside town. I reread a quote from Machiavelli's Prince purportedly that he is even better known by, even moreso than the famous one about how the end justifying the means. This other quote was:
tutti li tempi tornano
li uomini sono sempre li medessimi,
-- in English : in time, history repeats itself, humans are always the same -- this idea had a sort of ring to it that pointed to other philosophers, and it might be easily worked in to our conversation at some point.
​
Back when I visited San Gimignano with Kathy and her obsession with Many Lives, Many Masters, I was not ready to really see or read this amazing town. I collected my Touring Club Tuscany and the guidebook that had nonchalantly appeared to me in the old bookshop bin near my Rome studio, and left my house to meet the excursion's driver on Ponte Mazzini, along the Tiber River. For some reason, the back cover photo of town patron-saint San Gimignano with a small iconic model of the towered city on his lap spoke to me. It reminded me somehow of the city where I lived for almost twenty years before coming to Rome, and where my tourists were from: anachronistically, there I saw Miami, particularly its area of Brickell Avenue, sitting on the saint's lap as he blessed me with his gloved hand. There was the catch: the towers of the rich merchants of the Medieval Manhattan, and those of the city where so many bankers and doctors and plain working people lived. "My tourists must surely see this altarpiece image of Bishop Gimignano today, after they visit the Duomo..."
​
As we exited Rome by way of the Verano Cemetery and we approached the Eternal City's beltway, my lamp lit up. "Rome's beltway is coming up," I told Ina, Manuel her husband, and Luis and Jacqueline. "They call it the GRA, which is the acronym for Grande Raccordo Anullare. Some years ago, an award-winning film came out, called the GRA, which was a play on words on the Italian word for the... Grail. The Holy Grail." My travelers were silent. So I went on: "You could say that today we are sort of on an Indiana Last Crusade kind of expedition. And that Machiavelli, who was one of the many illustrious personages who lived in san Gimignano and wrote something like that in his political works. Maybe he got the idea of the circularity of time in human events, from one of the fresco paintings in the Duomo there. You might agree!"
The Resurrection of Lazarus, with Mary Magdalene at the feet of Jesus
Lippo Memmi
New Testament frescoes, c. 1325
San Gimignano
SAN GIMIGNANO with round tray-like skyscrapers of the Medieval Town
Taddeo di Bartolo
Palazzo Vecchio
FLORENCE
1400s
Niccolo Machiavelli
Santi di Tito
Palazzo Vecchio
FLORENCE
1500s
