Crumbling walls of Tuscan hill town trigger warnings over Italy’s treasured architecture
July 25, 2020 | News | No Comments
The mayor of the medieval Tuscan hill town of San Gimignano says the Unesco world heritage site is being neglected by Italy’s central government after a 65ft stretch of its surrounding 13th century walls collapsed without warning following heavy rainfall.
San Gimignano, described sometimes as a ‘medieval Manhattan’ with its cluster of 13 soaring towers built by the rival Guelph and Ghibelline dynasties, is a popular stop for British tourists in easy reach of Siena. As many as three million tourists from around the world visit each year.
Giacomo Bassi, the mayor, is furious that central government, because of cuts on local councils, will not allow him to spend some of the millions of reserves in the municipal bank account for upkeep of its monuments.
Repairs had been started recently on other stretches of the walls around San Gimignano that were considered more at risk of erosion. But a recent spate of wet weather undermined foundations in an unexpected area setting off the collapse on Tuesday afternoon of a section of 20 ft walls, local officials said.
"It is absurd that the Council of San Gimignano has 8 million (euros) in the bank and cannot spend them," the mayor, who is also president of the Italian Association of Unesco world heritage sites, told la Repubblica newspaper. “This is a disaster.”
Firefighters used sniffer dogs to search the tumbled masonry but determined nobody was hurt – though the walls overlooked a new walkway around the town built recently for €1.2 million.
Mr Bassi sees the incident as symptomatic of wider neglect of small Unesco heritage towns by authorities in Rome. In 2014 there was a public outcry after a strip of wall around the nearby Etruscan town of Volterra collapsed.
"Our city is a universal heritage, everyone ought to help preserve it," the mayor said, "not just the 7,000 inhabitants of San Gimignano."
In Rome the Ministry of Cultural Heritage Secretary General Carla Di Francesco said officials had contacted San Gimignano’s council “to draw up as soon as possible a project for recovery and restoration of the walls". A private building company began securing the area on Wednesday morning and the Archaeological Superintendant for archaeology and fine arts for Siena, Arezzo and Grossetto was monitoring the situation, officials said.
Click Here: geelong cats guernsey 2019
However the mayor says the Rome project for the town is "superficial" and expressions of concern in the capital are insufficient. “I launch an appeal because we are living through a national emergency, there must be action," he said.
“We mayors of these little, fragile jewels, can’t be left on our own.”