Pisa, Italy Summary

photo by gusto

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.