Municipal Palace
The "historic" home of the Civic Museums, San Gimignano's Palazzo Comunale is located in Piazza del Duomo, underscoring the importance and centrality of the city's seat of government. Built in 1288 and becoming the seat of the municipality in 1337, the palace features a façade with windows and lowered arches in large square stone drafts and characterized by a balcony on ancient corbels where the podestà spoke to the crowd. The Palazzo Comunale, also called Palazzo del Popolo or Palazzo Nuovo del Podestà, is structured on two floors, inside which are exhibits of artworks by the most famous Tuscan painters. On the second floor is the Sala del Consiglio, also called the Sala di Dante, in memory of the Supreme Poet's visit to the city of San Gimignano in 1299 as ambassador of the Guelph League.
Inside is a cycle of frescoes, painted by Azzo Masetto around 1290, with hunting and tournament scenes dedicated to Charles of Anjou; the majestic Madonna in Majesty painted by the Sienese painter Lippo Memmi in 1317, a follower of Simone Martini, cannot go unnoticed. Also throughout the room are the frescoed coats of arms of the French families who had fought in the Battle of Campaldino in the retinue of Charles II of Anjou. On the same floor is the Secret Meeting Room, used by the city government, which still contains the ancient inlaid wooden seats. On the second floor, on the other hand, is the Chamber of the Podestà where it is possible to admire the curious frescoes by Memmo di Filippuccio donominati Positive and negative outcomes of a young man's love initiation: from the early 14th century, they depict some amorous episodes with inauspicious outcomes, in which the figure of the philosopher Aristotle in love with the courtesan Fillide also appears.
These frescoes were placed just inside the Palazzo comunale with the function of a warning to the Podestà, who had to constantly remind himself not to be distracted from his institutional duties and tasks. The Pinacoteca, found on the same floor, is a marvelous treasure chest of works created between the 14th and 15th centuries by the best Florentine and Sienese artists, such as Benozzo Gozzoli, Benedetto da Maiano, Filippino Lippi and Pinturicchio; a veritable riot of the art of Italian painting.