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Pisa district
guide
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Pisa main information page)
Since the beginning
of tourism, PISA has been known for just one thing - the Leaning
Tower , which serves around the world as a shorthand image for
Italy. It is indeed a freakishly beautiful building, a sight
whose impact no amount of prior knowledge can blunt. Yet it is
just a single component of Pisa's breathtaking Campo dei
Miracoli , or Field of Miracles, where the Duomo, Baptistry and
Camposanto complete a dazzling architectural ensemble. These,
and a dozen or so churches and palazzi scattered about the
historic centre, belong to Pisa's "Golden Age", from the
eleventh to the thirteenth centuries, when the city was one of
the maritime powers of the Mediterranean. The so-called "Pisan
Romanesque" architecture of this period, with its black and
white marble facades inspired by the Moorish designs of
Andalucia, is complemented by some of the finest medieval
sculpture in Italy, much of it from the workshops of Nicola and
Giovanni Pisano. The city's political zenith came late in the
eleventh century with a series of victories over the Saracens :
the Pisans brought back from Arab cultures long-forgotten ideas
of science, architecture and philosophy. Decline set in with
defeat by the Genoese in 1284, followed by the silting-up of
Pisa's harbour. From 1406 the city was governed by Florence,
whose Medici rulers re-established the University of Pisa, one
of the intellectual forcing houses of the Renaissance; Galileo
was one of the teachers there. Subsequent centuries saw Pisa
fade into provinciality.
Since it was first laid out in the mid-eleventh century, Pisa's
ecclesiastical centre has been known as the Campo dei Miracoli (Field
of Miracles; also Piazza dei Miracoli or Piazza Duomo;
www.duomo.pisa.it ). The four major buildings - the Duomo , its
Bell-tower (which almost immediately slipped to become the
Leaning Tower ), the Baptistry and the monumental cemetery of
the Camposanto - were built on a broad swathe of grassy lawn
just within the northern walls of the city. Nowhere else in
Italy are the key buildings of a city arrayed with such
precision, and nowhere is there so beautiful a contrast of
stonework and open meadow. However, the turf rests on highly
unstable sandy soil, which accounts for the tower's lean; take a
look at the baptistry and you'll see that it leans the other way
from the tower.
The rest of the city centre makes for some fine wandering,
through alleys that have largely retained their medieval
appearance. Southeast, on the river, is the Museo Nazionale di
San Matteo , a fine collection of ecclesiastical art and
sculpture, while west along the Arno is the lavish Palazzo Reale
mansion and the city's huge Arsenale , the latter currently
housing a display of items taken from ongoing excavations at the
newly discovered site of Pisa's ancient harbour. One of Pisa's
biggest surprises lurks in an unregarded piazza south of the
river near the train station: covering one wall of an open bus
station is the last-ever mural by US artist Keith Haring .
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