Photograph showing the Torri degli Ardinghelli, or Towers of the Guelphs, at the eleventh-century hill-top town of San Gimignano, near Siena, Italy, prior to July 1944. This picture shows the towers, as viewed from the Palazzo del Podesta. Later that month the Illustrated London News reported that a German artillery bombardment, starting on the 13th July and lasting 30 hours, had reduced the town to ruins.