Frommer's Review
The main church in town -- it no longer has a bishop, so it's no longer officially a duomo (cathedral) -- was started in the 11th century and took its present form in the 15th century. It's not much from the outside, but the interior is smothered in 14th-century frescoes, making it one of Tuscany's most densely decorated churches.
The right wall was frescoed from 1333 to 1341 -- most likely by Lippo Memmi -- with three levels of New Testament scenes (22 in all) on the life and Passion of Christ along with a magnificent Crucifixion. In 1367, Bartolo di Fredi frescoed the left wall with 26 scenes out of the Old Testament, and Taddeo di Bartolo provided the gruesome Last Judgment frescoes around the entrance wall in 1410. Benozzo Gozzoli wins the "Prickliest St. Sebastian in Tuscany" prize for his colorful and courtly 1464 rendition on the entrance wall.
In 1468, Giuliano da Maiano built the Cappella di Santa Fina off the right aisle, and his brother Benedetto carved the relief panels for the altar. Florentine Renaissance master Domenico Ghirlandaio decorated the tiny chapel's walls with some of his finest, airiest works. With the help of assistants (his brother Davide and Sebastiano Mainardi), Ghirlandaio in 1475 frescoed two scenes summing up the life of Santa Fina, a local girl who, though never officially canonized, is one of San Gimignano's patron saints. Little Fina, who was very devout and wracked with guilt for having committed the sin of accepting an orange from a boy, fell down ill on a board one day and didn't move for 5 years, praying the entire time. Eventually, St. Gregory appeared to her and announced her death, whereupon the board on which she lay miraculously produced flowers. When her corpse was carried solemnly to the church for a funeral, the city's towers burst forth with yellow pansies and angels flew up to ring the bells. At the church, a blind choirboy and Fina's nurse, who had a paralyzed hand, found themselves miraculously cured merely by touching her body. The town still celebrates their child saint every year on March 12, when the pansies on San Gimignano's towers naturally bloom.
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