Piazza del Duomo, Pisa Tourist Guide 🇮🇹 Italy

Near the imposing chain of the Alpi Apoane and the world-famous marble quarries of Carrara, Pisa is one of Italy's and Tuscany's most famous cities of art, well-renowned all over the world for its medieval monuments. Cathedral Square is the heart of Pisa and the immortal symbol of the splendor and power of the Golden Age of the Republic of Pisa. With its world-famous monuments, the square can well claim to be the symbol of Italian art. Amongst the most important monuments in Pisa are the Cathedral, the Baptistery, which is the largest in Italy, the Leaning Tower, one of Italy's most renowned monuments, and the monumental Churchyard. These monuments transform the common name of a square into the Field of Miracles. The name Field of Miracles was created by the poet Gabriele D'Annunzio, who observing it from a plane called it Prato dei Miracoli, literally Field of Miracles. This beautiful marble fountain, called La Fontana dei Patti, the Fountain of Angels, is one of the small treasures in the square. This grand masterpiece, the Cathedral, was started in the year 1063 by the great architect Buschetto. The Cathedral, one of the most important monuments in the city, is dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta. The fine marble façade is in the Pisan Romanesque style that can also be seen in Lucca and other Tuscan cities. Above this are four rows of open arcades with delicate columns and Moorish-inspired arches rising to the top of a gable. The bottom section has tall blind arcades with pastel-coloured marble inlay and three portals with bronze doors. In the buildings of the Piazza, the great artists of the Golden Age of the Pisan Republic, from Buschetto to Bonanno Pisano and Diotis Alvi, succeeded in grafting on the linear and sober Romanesque style, oriental elements coming from different traditions, Armenian, Arabic and Byzantine. With their extraordinary artistic talent and their supreme command of building techniques, the great Pisan masters created that special style that's commonly found in so many Pisan churches and in so many of the Tuscan cathedrals. The history of the Cathedral of Pisa is reported by a series of epigraphs embedded on its façade, enabling one to determine the events related to this monument, the period, the founder, the circumstances and the means of construction. The Cathedral is cruciform in plan and has an extremely elongated main body, divided into five aisles by two double rows of columns with a semicircular apse at its end. The transept intersects the main body and is divided by two colonnades into three aisles. The pulpit has beautifully carved panels of biblical scenes and is regarded as the masterpiece of the Pisano family. The spacious nave has a cosmotesque marble pavement and two aisles on each side. The transept crossing is covered by a painted oval dome. Due to the 1595 fire, the interior is mostly decorated with Renaissance art, but there are also some fine medieval survivals. The women's gallery, with its little lodges located above the nave, the rich elaborately decorated lacuna ceiling, the ample profound terminal apse, where on Christ on his throne contrasts, complete the architecture of the church. The play of the minor colonnades, the black and white panels which line the walls, helps to give vivacity and movement to the grandiose realization of the temple. Of all the monuments in Piazza dei Miracoli, the Leaning Tower is the one that stirs the imagination of all who see it. What's made the tower world famous is its inclination, caused by the slow sinking of the muddy soil of the Pisan plain, a sinking that had already begun in the early stages of construction at the end of the 12th century. This very famous work is of Romanesque style, cylindrical in shape, supplied with six open galleries. In the base there's a series of large blind arcades with geometrical decorations. In the belfry is the same design of arcades as the base, with the difference that here there are the housings of the bells. The top of the Leaning Tower can be reached by mounting the 294 steps which rise in the form of a spiral on the inner side of the tower walls. The baptistry is a round Romanesque building with an eight-sided pyramidal dome. The dome, divided in 12 segments, is covered partly with tiles and partly with lead. The presence of two different styles, Pisan Romanesque in the lower part and Gothic in the upper, doesn't spoil the harmony and the elegance of the building. In fact the austerity of the blind arches on the ground floor enhances the beauty of the delicate decorations and of the mullioned windows of the upper part. The baptistry is clad in white marble, inlaid with grey bands, and the shaped dome is partly red brick, partly white lead leaf. Like the cathedral, the round-shaped baptistry is surrounded by columned arcades. Of the four portals, the most remarkable is the one facing the cathedral. The carvings on the main portal, framed by columns with floral patterns, and the arcaded gallery, echo the cathedral. The interior is divided by powerful columns into an inner part and an annular nave. Eight monolithic columns, competing in height with those in the cathedral, are alternated with four pillars and form a central area in which stands an antagonal baptismal font by Guido da Como. In the left-hand part of the latter, one can see Nicola Pisano's beautiful pulpit, where the austere Romanesque sculpture and the dynamical Gothic decoration are superbly mixed. Its octagonal structure is supported by seven columns with elegant plinths. The roof consists of a double dome. The internal dome is a dodecagonal truncated pyramid, whereas the external one is barrel-vaulted and surmounted by a cupola. The space and shape layout are very original. To the north, Piazza del Duomo is closed by the white structure of the Camposanto Monumentale. The marble front is enlivened by 43 blind arches. There are two doorways. The one on the right is surmounted by an elegant Gothic tabernacle, in the interior of which there's a beautiful sculpture by Giovanni Pisano, representing the Virgin Mary with child and various saints. Inside is the graveyard proper, where, according to tradition, Pisan ships in the Middle Ages brought soil from Mount Calvary in Palestine. All around the graveyard, there are wide arcades with large elaborate windows. The cloisters are filled with funerary monuments, many of which reuse ancient Roman sarcophagi. Despite the loss of many tombs during the war, a remarkable 84 Roman sarcophagi, most from the third century AD, still survive. Other funerary monuments are neoclassical confections, floor tombstones with effigy reliefs and smaller memorial plaques. Some original frescoes can still be seen in the Camposanto, the most notable of which are in the large room off the north gallery. Dating from the 14th century, these depict the triumph of death, a terrifying last judgment and stories of the anchorites. Roman sculptures were also brought to the Camposanto for decoration, beginning in the 14th century. Pisa was founded as an ancient maritime republic and has developed along the Arno river. The small church of Santa Maria della Spina is a remarkable example of Pisan Gothic, built on the banks of the river Arno, next to an important bridge called Ponte Novo. The Cappella della Spina was originally much lower than the present street level, almost on the river's gravel bed. At the end of the 19th century, the church was carefully disassembled and reassembled in the new position to save it from the floods of the river. The plan of the church is rectangular, completely covered with white and black marble bands. Still in the church are the 15th century statues by Andrea and Giovanni Pisano. The one nave interior has wooden ceilings. Very little of the original furniture is left in the church, most of it is now in the Museo di San Matteo. San Michele in Borgo church was built on the ruins of a Roman temple dedicated to Mars, the god of war. The white marble facade mixes the usual elements of the Pisan Romanesque style with the Gothic style of the small arches and the small sculpted heads which decorate the lodges. Since 1295, St Nicola church has been part of the monastery of the Augustinian canons. The interior of the 18th century church has only one wide nave with a series of altars added in the 16th century. Knight's Square, known in the time of the Pisan Republic as the Square of the Seven Roads, is thought to be the site of the Forum of Roman Pisa. It was the center of politics of the Pisan Republic when it was transformed by Cosimo I de' Medici into the seat of the new military order of the Knights of St Stephen. Palazzo della Carovana has regular windows with stone frames and panels. The Church of St Stephen of the Knights was made for the knights following Vasari's project, while the facade in marble was the idea of Cosimo's stepson, Giovanni de' Medici. Pisa has often been described as a radiant city, a serene and horizontal town.