San Gimignano
San Gimignano is a Tuscan hilltown, famous for its merchant families who built unfeasibly tall towers to try to outdo their rival neighbours. The forefathers of New York skyscrapers, these towers date from medieval times and draw thousands of tourists every day who far outweigh the number of actual inhabitants of the town. Hidden away unseen by the tourists, occupying a fifth of the walled city and still under strict lock and key, the former convent and then prison is now falling into ruins.
Curiously this prison serves as a strong and essential form of respite and escape in a town with intensive land-use and a vigorous tourist trade. Successive mayors have seen the convent as an asset to be capitalised on and a space that should be freed up for development. The site is a protected historical structure that is difficult to separate from its past as a prison or to convert profitably. In this vacuum of no-change is a derelict building in full use. Each wing has its own director, and in the principal exercise yard, an appointed 'il Presidente' ponders his next move, with a rescued bird on his shoulder, in a game of dominoes between these wing directors that may have been running for years. I passed an unlocked fridge with a glass door, full of wine, beer, soft drinks with a converted collection box next to it. One wing serves the music school for practice rooms - one musician per cell; another is used by local archaeologists - one dig archived per cell. The palio rehearse their horse-back jousting in the courtyards. Political associations also have cells. One cell had a tile outside declaring it to be the communist party headquarters. It was locked, but through the grill could be seen red leatherette chairs crammed into a room presided over by a portrait of Che Guevara.
To the local government the convent/prison is a wasteland, as it is not in profitable use. To the community of San Gimignano it is the one place they can still be a vibrant community and hang out, get stuff done, walled in and far enough away from their streets full of strangers rushing through their town.