The patron of San Miniato is Saint Genesius, celebrated on 25 August, and the cathedral bears his name alongside that of Santa Maria Assunta.
That name comes from far away, which is to say from just below: down on the plain stood the village of San Genesio, in the early Middle Ages vicus Wallari, with a church that was already serving as a pieve in 763. Giovanni Villani relates that in 1200 its inhabitants left it for today's San Miniato, and that in 1248 the village was destroyed altogether. In memory of that descent from the ancient pieve, in 1622 the cathedral of San Miniato was consecrated to Saint Genesius; in the village only a small chapel was left, and excavations have now brought its structures back to light.
