San Gimignano was quite a force to be reckoned with in the early Middle Ages. It was controlled by two great families - the Ardinghelli and the Salvucci - and its 15,000 population (twice the present number) prospered on agricultural holdings and its position on the Lombardy-to-Rome pilgrim route. At its heyday, the town's walls enclosed five monasteries, four hospitals, public baths and a brothel. Feuds , however, had long wreaked havoc: the first Ardinghelli-Salvucci conflict erupted in 1246. Whenever the town itself was united, it picked fights with Volterra, Poggibonsi and other neighbours. These were halted only by the Black Death , which devastated the population and - as the pilgrim trade collapsed - the economy. Subjection to Florence broke the power of the nobles and so their tower-houses, symbolic in other towns of real control, were not torn down; today, 15 of an original 72 survive. At the beginning of the last century, travellers spoke of San Gimignano as "miserably poor"; its postwar history has been one of ever-increasing affluence, through tourism and the production of an old-established but recently rejuvenated white wine , Vernaccia. The famous Festival Internazionale ( www.fts.toscana.it ) fills a couple of weeks in late July with opera , ballet and concerts of symphonic and chamber music on an open-air stage in Piazza Duomo; consult the tourist office for full details.