The Fattoria Guicciardini building complex rose in the second half of the 15th century, after the second surrounding-walls of the town were built in 1260, to incorporate the Church and the convent of St. Augustine which had gained a great importance for the local community.
The building is located between the St. Augustin square and the town-walls perimeter.
After the demolition of the old walls, the structure overlooking Via Cellolese and Piazza Sant'Agostino was built; it presents the typical features of ancient houses with stores and workshops on the ground floor and apartments on the upper floors.
The corner adjacent to the gate “San Matteo” partly insists on the medieval walls; it was then altered in the second half of the XIX century with the demolition of the “Antiporto di San Matteo”; this allowed the creation of the façade on Viale Garibaldi, as it currently is.
From the 13th century onwards, the building underwent many transformations and from 1700 to the 1950s it was gradually transformed into a farm, property of the Strozzi family; in 1877, it was brought as a dowry to the Guicciardini family, when Princess Luisa Strozzi married Count Francesco Guicciardini, already proprietor of the Cusona farm. At that time, the estate was rather large with its fifteen holdings in the surroundings of San Gimignano and many hectares of woodland.
The farmhouse building hosted many activities: among others there were granaries, stables, cellars, a carpenter’s workshop and an oil-mill on the ground floor.
The upper floors were used as lodgings for workers and for the farmer’s family, together with the guestrooms, the administrative office, and a hall decorated in nineteenth-century style, where important people were received.
The attics were used for grapes post-harvest withering, to produce the famous Vin Santo.
The farmhouse was gradually abandoned in the course of the years; it has been entirely renovated in 2000, and now it includes the Holiday Apartments, as well as the private apartments of the Counts Guicciardini Roberto and Margherita and their sons Tuccio, Francesco and Luisa. On the ground floor there are restaurants, shops, various commercial activities and the historic dance school of San Gimignano.
