San Gimignano Guide

The Archaeological Museum
On the first floor of the Museum Complex of the Conservatorio di Santa Chiara, the Archaeological Museum has a highly important collection of Etruscan, Roman and mediaeval finds from the town and surrounding territory, illustrating the material history of San Gimignano and also retracing the techniques employed in making pottery and glass receptacles. The section dealing with Etruscan civilisation on San Gimignano territory is absolutely first class. The finds – from burial grounds and settlements in the San Gimignano area – date from the 7th to the 1st century BC. The Mediaeval section also contains pottery and glass tableware/kitchenware from the middle ages to the Renaissance.

La Spezieria di Santa Fina
On the first floor of the Museum Complex of the Conservatorio di Santa Chiara, the collection of pottery and glass receptacles from the ancient Spezieria dello Spedale di Santa Fina is one of San Gimignano’s finest and most interesting attractions. The exhibition is set up as a reproduction of the ancient apothecary’s premises with the space divided into the “shop”, where goods were sold, and the “kitchen” , where medicaments were prepared.
There are also ancient remedies on show, actually found in their original containers.

“Raffaele De Grada” Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art
The Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art is named for Raffaele De Grada. He loved San Gimignano and some of his works can be seen in the Gallery. As well as its extensive permanent collection the Gallery hosts exhibitions by avant-garde artists. Among the modern and contemporary art works owned by the Municipality of San Gimignano are canvases by Cannicci, De Grada, Guttuso, Vacchi, Fieschi and Nespolo, and sculptures by Bodini, Shmettau and Hesse.


The Vernaccia Wine Museum
The San Gimignano Vernaccia Wine Museum is a tribute to the quality and prestige of San Gimignano wine and its fortunes. The Municipal Administration enthusiastically backed the Museum as a place of excellence, memory, tradition and identity. The wines produced in San Gimignano are: Vernaccia di San Gimignano DOCG, San Gimignano Rosso DOC and IGT Toscana (Typical Geographical Indication), with an overall production of 9 million bottles a year of which 70% is sold abroad and the rest on the home market.
The Museum, housed in the Villa della Rocca di Montestaffoli, was designed by architect Duccio Santini and is run by the Vernaccia di San Gimignano Wine Road Association. The Museum offers a journey through wine. There are illustrative panels, photos and interactive instruments for dialogue with winemaking estates and public bodies. But also through visual and olfactory perceptions the visitor is immersed in the essence of wine, in a space dedicated to sensations: to the odour of grape must, to images of grapes being crushed, to the gurgling of fermenting wine. There are also videos shown on the origins and history of Vernaccia di San Gimignano. The Museum also organises wine tasting.

The Ornithological Museum
Housed in the small 16th century church of San Francesco in Via Quercecchio, the Ornithological Museum’s collection was donated to the Municipality in 1927 by Marchesa Marianna Panciatichi Ximenes d’Aragona Paolucci, a great ornithology enthusiast. Most of the exhibits – there are currently 371 – were collected between 1866 and 1911 on the Monte estate (San Gimignano). The collection, installed in the present Museum in 1990, was set up under the supervision of the Department of Environmental Biology at Siena University and the National Institute of Wildlife Biology.