Piazza del Duomo

Beneath the surviving towers of San Gimignano, the cathedral square is among the most photographed spaces in Tuscany and, for a few nights each summer, one of its more improbable opera houses. The steps of the Collegiata face the Palazzo Comunale across paving that has carried markets, processions and civic assemblies for centuries. Festival concerts and full staged productions take the square after dark: Puccini's Madama Butterfly has been mounted here during a Tuscan opera festival, the medieval façades doing the work of scenery.