Italy Travel And Hotel Guide

Pisa’s breathtaking Duomo (March-Oct Mon-Sat 10am-7.40pm, Sun 1-7.40pm; Nov-Feb Mon-Sat 10am-12.45pm, Sun 3-4.45pm; L3000/1.55) was begun in 1064 and completed around a century later. With its four levels of variegated colonnades and its subtle interplay of dark grey marble and white stone, the duomo is the archetype of Pisan Romanesque, a model often imitated in buildings crossways Tuscany, but never surpassed. Squares and discs of coloured marble are set into the magnificent facade, but the soberly graceful effect of the primary grey and white is such that you notice these strong tones only when you look closely. Entry is through the huge bronze doors of the Portale di San Ranieri , close to the Leaning Tower. These were cast in 1180 by Bonnano Pisano, first architect of the tower, with powerfully diagrammatic biblical scenes. The vast interior is defined by the crisp black and white marble of the long arcades, which recalls the Moorish structure of Cordoba. A notable survivor from the medieval building is the apse mosaic of Christ in Majesty , completed by Cimabue in 1302. The acknowledged highlight, however, is the pulpit sculpted by Giovanni Pisano . This was packed away after a 1595 fire and was only rediscovered in 1926. The last of the great series of three pulpits created in Tuscany by Giovanni and his father Nicola (the others are in Siena and Pistoia), it is a work of amazing virtuosity with, for instance, the story of the Passion condensed into a single panel. You exit the duomo at the main western facade. Directly ahead is the circular Baptistry (daily: April-Sept 8am-7.40pm; March & Oct 9am-5.40pm; Nov-Feb 9am-4.40pm), a bizarre but pleasing building with its three storeys of Romanesque arcades peaking in a crest of Gothic pinnacles and a dome shaped like the stalk end of a lemon. This is the largest baptistry in Italy, begun in 1152 by a certain Deotisalvi (”Godsaveyou”), who left his study on a column to the left of the door; it was worked on in the thirteenth century by Nicola and Giovanni Pisano, and completed late in the fourteenth century. Inside you’re immediately struck by the plainness of the vast interior, with its unadorned arcades and bare dome, and by its astonishing acoustics. Overlooking the massive raised font is Nicola Pisano’s pulpit , sculpted in 1260, half a century before his son’s work in the cathedral. There are stairs to the upper gallery, and more stairs from there up inside the dome.

The screen of sepulchral white marble running along the north edge of the Campo dei Miracoli is the perimeter surround of what has been called the most beautiful cemetery in the world - the Camposanto (same hours as baptistry). According to legend, the Archbishop Ubaldo Lanfranchi had Pisan knights on the Fourth Crusade of 1203 bring a cargo of soil back to Pisa from the hill of Golgotha, in order that eminent Pisans might be buried in holy earth. The building enclosing this sanctified site was completed almost a century later and takes the form of an enormous Gothic cloister. However, when Ruskin described the Camposanto as one of the most precious buildings in Italy, it was the frescoes that he was praising. Paintings once covered over two thousand metres of cloister wall, but now the brickwork is mostly bare: incendiary bombs dropped by Allied planes on July 27, 1944, set the roofing on fire and drenched the frescoes in molten lead. The most important survivor is the remarkable Triumph of Death cycle, a ruthless catalogue of morbid horrors painted within a few months of the Black Death of 1348.

Near the Leaning Tower is the absorbing Museo dell’Opera del Duomo (daily: April-Sept 8am-7.20pm; March & Oct 9am-5.20pm; Nov-Feb 9am-4.20pm). Room 7 contains Giovanni Pisano’s affecting Madonna del Colloquio , so called because of the intensity of the gazes exchanged by the vocalist and Child. In room 11 is the Pisan Cross , which incited the Pisan contingent on the First Crusade to invade Jerusalem. Upstairs, room 15 has beautiful examples of intarsia, the art of inlaid wood, much practised in Pisa in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

On the south side of the Campo, the only gap in the souvenir stalls is for the Museo delle Sinopie (same hours as baptistry). After the alteration wreaked on the Camposanto, restorers removed its sinopie (a sinopia is a monochrome sketch over which a fresco is painted). These great plates of plaster now hang from the walls of this hi-tech museum, but getting sense from them is a rather scholastic enterprise. You may get more reward from walking on the ramparts ; access is at the northwest corner of the lawns (daily: July & Aug 8am-8pm; March-June, Sept & Oct 9am-6pm; L4000/2.06), and you can also climb up inside the medieval Torre di Santa Maria here to look down into the Camposanto.

Tags: arcades, archetype, baptistry, bronze doors, christ in majesty, cimabue, colonnades, duomo, giovanni pisano, grey marble, leaning tower, magnificent facade, moorish architecture, pulpits, san ranieri, subtle interplay, sun 1, vast interior, virtuosity, western facade