Casa Elisabetta, Castra, 23rd September 1994
San Gimignano the town of towers. It seems to be full of noisy Germans, Americans and jackdaws. Coaches drop off visitors, who stream in waves up the Via San Matteo.
In the cloister of the Collegiata at the Duomo, by the Piazza Pecori, a harpist plays, vibrant rippling notes floating around the stones and under the arches. He sits eyes closed, intense, his face occasionally wincing, as he hits a wrong note perhaps, I cannot tell. A small audience sits rapt; the first reaction of new arrivals is to raise a camera. An American shrills, ‘Gee, another fresco.’ And indeed there is, Sebastiano Mainardi’s Annunciation at the end of the cloister beyond the harpist. A dozing German Shepherd joins in the polite applause with a gruff bark.