Pisa


History - Ancient times
Pisa's origins are unknown. The city lies at the junction of two rivers, Arno and Auser (now disappeared) in the Tyrrhenian Sea forming a laguna area. The Pelasgi, the Greeks, the Etruscans and the Ligurians have variously been proposed as founders of the city. Archeological remains from the 5th century BC confirm the existence of a city at the sea, trading with Greeks and Gauls. The presence of an Etruscan necropolis was discovered during excavations in the Arena Garibaldi in 1991. Also ancient Roman authors referred to Pisa as an old city. Servius wrote that the Teuti, or Pelopes, the king of the Pisei, founded the town thirteen centuries before the birth of Christ. Strabo referred Pisa's origins to the mythical Nestor, king of Pylos, after the fall of Troy. Vergil in his Aeneid states that Pisa was already a great and developed centre by the times described; foundation of the city in the 'Etruscan lands' credited to settlers from Alpheus coast.
The maritime role of Pisa should have been already prominent if the ancient authorities ascribed to it the invention of the rostrum: it took advantage of being the only port along the coast, from Genoa, then a small village, to Ostia. Pisa served as a base for Roman naval expeditions against Ligurians, Gauls and Carthaginians. In 180 BC it became a Roman colony under Roman law, as Portus Pisanus. In 89 BC, Portus Pisanus became a municipium. Emperor Augustus fortified the colony into an important port and changed the name in Colonia Iulia obsequens. From 313 it became the seat of a bishopric.

History - High Middles Ages
During the later years of the Roman Empire Pisa probably did not decline as much as the other cities of Italy, probably thanks to the complexity of its river system and its consequent ease of defence. In the 7th century Pisa helped the pope Gregorius the Great by supplying numerous ships in his military expedition against the Byzantines of Ravenna: Pisa was the sole Byzantine centre of Tuscia to fall peacefully in Lombard hands, through assimilation with the neighbouring region where their trading interests were prevailing. Pisa began in this way its rise to the role of main port of the Upper Thyrrenian Sea and became the main trading centre between Tuscany and Corsica, Sardinia and the southern coasts of France and Spain.
After Charlemagne had defeated the Lombards under the command of Desiderius in 774, Pisa went through a crisis but recovered soon. Politically it became part of the duchy of Lucca. In 930 Pisa became the county centre (status it mantained until the arrival of Otto I) within the mark of Tuscia. Lucca was the capital but Pisa was the most important city, as in the middle of 10th century Liutprand, bishop of Cremona, called Pisa Tusciae provinciae caput ("capital of the province of Tuscia"), and one century later the marquis of Tuscia was commonly referred to as "marquis of Pisa". In 1003 Pisa was the protagonist of the first communal war in Italy, against Lucca of course. From the naval point of view, since the 9th century the emergence of the Saracen pirates urged the city to expand its fleet: in the next years this fleet gave the town an opportunity for more expansion. In 828 the Pisan ships assaulted the coast of North Africa. In 871 they took part in the defence of Salerno from the Saracens. In 970 they gave also a strong support to the Otto I's expedition, who defeated a Byzantine fleet in front of Calabrese coasts.

History - 11th century
The power of Pisa as a mighty maritime nation began to grow on and reached its apex in the 11th century when it acquired traditional fame as one of the four main historical Marine Republics of Italy (Repubbliche Marinare) of Italy.
At that time the city was a very important commercial centre and controlled a significant Mediterranean merchant fleet and navy. It expanded its powers by the sack in 1005 of Reggio di Calabria in the south of Italy. Pisa was in continuous conflict with the Saracens, who had their bases in Sardinia and Corsica, for control of the Mediterranean Sea. In 1017 Sardinia was captured, in alliance with Genoa, by the defeat of the Saracen king Mugahid. This victory gave Pisa the supremacy in the Tyrrhenian Sea. When the Pisans subsequently ousted the Genoese from Sardinia, a new conflict and rivalry was born between these mighty Marine Republics. Between 1030 and 1035 Pisa went on to successfully defeat several rival towns in Sicily and conquer Carthage in North Africa. In 1051-1052 the admiral Jacopo Ciurini conquered Corsica, provoking more resentment from the Genoese. In 1063 admiral Giovanni Orlando, coming at the aid of the Norman Roger I, took Palermo from the Saracen pirates. The gold treasure taken from the Saracens in Palermo allowed the Pisans to start the building of their cathedral and the other monuments which constitute the famous Campo dei Miracoli.
In 1060 Pisa had to engage in their first battle with Genoa. The Pisan victory helped to consolidate its position in the Mediterranean. Pope Gregory VII recognized in 1077 the new "Laws and customs of the sea" instituted by the Pisans, and emperor Henry IV granted them the right to name their own consuls, advised by a Council of Elders. This was simply a confirmation of the present situation, because in those years the marquis had already been excluded from power. In 1092 Pope Urban II awarded Pisa the supremacy over Corsica and Sardinia, and at the same time raising the town to the rank of archbishopric.
Pisa sacked the Tunisian city of El Mehedia in 1088. Four years later Pisan and Genoese ships helped Alfonso VI of Castilla to push the Cid out of Valencia. A Pisan fleet of 120 ships also took part in the first crusade and the Pisans were instrumental in the taking of Jerusalem in 1099. On their way to the Holy Land the ships did not miss the occasion to sack some Byzantine islands: the Pisan crusaders were led by their archbihsop Daibert, the future patriarch of Jerusalem. Pisa and the other Repubbliche Marinare took advantage of the crusade to establish trading posts and colonies in the Eastern coastal cities of Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. In particular the Pisans founded colonies in in Antiochia, Acre, Jaffa, Tripolis, Tyre, Joppe, Laodicea and Accone. They also had other possessions in Jerusalem and Caesarea, plus smaller colonies (with lesser autonomy) in Cairo, Alexandria and of course Constantinople, where the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus granted them special mooring and trading rights. In all these cities the Pisans were granted privileges and immunity from taxation, but had to contribute to the defence in case of attack. In the 12th century the Pisan quarter in the Eastern part of Constantinople had grown to 1,000 people. For some years of that century Pisa was the most prominent merchant and military ally of the Byzantine Empire, overcoming Venice itself.

History - 12th century
In 1113 Pisa and the Pope Paschal II set up, together with the count of Barcelona and other contingents from Provence and Italy (Genoese excluded), a war to free the Balearic Islands from the Moors: the queen and the king of Mallorca were brought in chains to Tuscany. Even though the Almovarids soon reconquered the island, the booty taken helped the Pisans in their magnificent program of buildings, especially the cathedral, and Pisa gained a role of pre-eminence in the Western Mediterranean.
In the following years the mighty Pisan fleet, led by archbishop Pietro Moriconi, drove away the Saracens after ferocious combats. Though short-lived, this success of Pisa in Spain increased the rivalry with Genoa. Pisa's trade with the Languedoc and Provence (Noli, Savona, Fréjus and Montpellier) were an obstacle to the Genoese interests in cities like Hyerés, Fos, Antibes and Marseille.
The war began in 1119 when the Genoese attacked several galleys on their way to the motherland, and lasted until 1133. The two cities fought each other on land and at sea, but hostilities were limited to raids and pirate-like assaults.
In June 1135, Bernard of Clairvaux took a leading part in the Council of Pisa, asserting the claims of pope Innocent II against those of pope Anacletus II, who had been elected pope in 1130 with Norman support but was not recognized outside Rome. Innocent II resolved the conflict with Genoa, establishing the sphere of influence of Pisa and Genoa. Pisa could then, unhindered by Genoa, participate in the conflict of Innocent II against king Roger II of Sicily. Amalfi, one of the Maritime Republics ((though already declining under Norman rule), was conquered on August 6, 1136: the Pisans destroyed the ships in the port, assaulted the castles in the surrounding areas and drove back an army sent by Roger from Aversa. This victory brought Pisa to the peak of its power and to a standing equal to Venice. Two years later its soldiers sacked Salerno.
In the following years Pisa was one of the staunchiest supporters of the Ghibelline party. This was much appreciated by Frederick I. He issued in 1162 and 1165 two important documents, with the following grants : apart from the jurisdiction over the Pisan countryside, the Pisans were granted freedom of trade in the whole Empire, the coast from Civitavecchia to Portovenere, a half of Palermo, Messina, Salerno and Naples, the whole Gaeta, Mazzarri and Trapani, and a street with houses for its merchants in every city of the Kingdom of Sicily. Some of these grants were later confirmed by Henry VI, Otto IV and Frederick II. They marked the apex of Pisa's power, but also spurred the resentment of cities like Lucca, Massa, Volterra and Florence, who saw their aim to expand towards the sea thwarted. The clash with Lucca also concerned the possession of the castle of Montignoso and mainly the control of the Via Francigena, the main trade route between Rome and France. Last but not least, such a sudden and large increase of power of Pisa could only lead to another war with Genoa.
Genoa had acquired a largely dominant position in the markets of the Southern France. The war began presumably in 1165 on the Rhone, when an attack on a convoy, directed to some Pisan trade centres on the river, by the Genoese and their ally, the count of Toulouse failed. Pisa on the other hand was allied to the Provence. The war continued until 1175 without significant victories. Another point of attrition was Sicily, where both the cities had privileges granted by Henry VI. In 1192 Pisa managed to conquer Messina. This episode was followed by a series of battles culminating in the Genoese conquest of Syracuse in 1204. Later the trading posts in Sicily were lost when the new Pope Innocent III, though removing the excommunication, cast over Pisa by his predecessor Celestine III, allied himself with the Guelph League of Tuscany, led by Florence. Soon he stipulated a pact with Genoa too, further weaking the Pisa presence in Southern Italy.
To counter the Genoese predominance in the southern Thyrrenian Sea, Pisa strengthened its relationship with their Spanish and French traditional bases (Marseille, Narbonne, Barcelona, etc.) and tried to defy the Venetian rule of the Adriatic Sea. In 1180 the two cities had agreed to a non-aggression treaty in the Thyrrenian and the Adriatic, but the death of Emperor Manuel Comnenus in Constantinople changed the situation. Soon there were attacks on Venetian convoys. Pisa signed trade and political pacts with Ancona, Pola, Zara, Split and Brindisi: in 1195 a Pisan fleet reached Pola to defend its independence from Venice, but the Serenissima managed soon to reconquer the rebel sea town.
One year later the two cities signed a peace treaty which resulted in favourable conditions for Pisa. But in 1199 the Pisans violated it by blockading the port of Brindisi in Puglia. But in the following naval battle they were defeated by the Venetians. The war that followed ended in 1206 with a treaty in which Pisa gave up all its hopes to expand in the Adriatic, though it mantained the trading posts it had established in the area. From that point on the two cities were united against the rising power of Genoa and sometimes collaborated to increase the trading benefits in Constantinople.

History - 13th century
In 1209 and 1217 there were in Lerici two councils for a final resolution of the rivalry with Genoa. A twenty-year peace treaty was signed. But when in 1220 the emperor [Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor|Frederick II]] confirmed his supremacy over the Thyrrenian coast from Civitavecchia to Portovenere, the Genoese and Tuscanian resentment against Pisa grew again. In the following years Pisa clashed with Lucca in Garfagnana and was defeated by the Florentine at Castel del Bosco. The strong Ghibelline position of Pisa brought this town diametricallty against the Pope, who was in a strong dispute with the Empire. And indeed the pope tried to deprive the town of its dominions in Northern [Sardinia]].
In 1238 Pope Gregory IX formed an alliance between Genoa and Venice against the Empire, and consequently against Pisa too. One year later he excommunicated Frederick II and called for an anti-Empire council to be held in Rome in 1241. On May 3, 1241, a combined fleet of Pisan and Sicilian ships, led by the Emperor's son Enzo, attacked a Genoese convoy carrying prelates from Northern Italy and France, next to the Isola del Giglio, in front of Tuscany: the Genoese lost 25 ships, while about thousand sailors, two cardinals and one bishop were taken prisoner. After this outstanding victory the council in Rome failed, but Pisa was excommunicated. This extreme measure was only removed in 1257. Anyway, the Tuscan city tried to take advantage of the favourable situation to conquer the Corsican city of Aleria and even lay siege to Genoa itself in 1243.
The Ligurian republic of Genoa, however, recovered fast from this blow and won back Lerici, conquered by the Pisans some years earlier, in 1256.
The great expansion in the Mediterranean and the prominence of the merchant class urged a modification in the city's institutes. The system with consuls was abandoned and in 1230 the new city rulers named a Capitano del Popolo ("People's Chieftain") as civil and military leader. In spite of these reforms, the conquered lands and the city itself were harassed by the rivalry between the two families of Della Gherardesca and Visconti. In 1237 the archbishop and the Emperor Frederick II intervened to reconcile the two rivals, but the strains did not cease. In 1254 the people rebelled and imposed twelve Anziani del Popolo ("People's Elders") as their political representatives in the Commune. They also supplemented the legislative councils, formed of noblemen, with new People's Councils, composed by the main guilds and by the chiefs of the People's Companies. These had the power to ratify the laws of the Major General Council and the Senate.

Decline
The decline began on August 6, 1284, when the numerically superior fleet of Pisa, under the command of Albertino Morosini, was defeated by the brilliant tactics of the Genoese fleet, under the command of Benedetto Zaccaria and Oberto Doria, in the dramatic naval Battle of Meloria. This defeat ended the maritime power of Pisa and the town never fully recovered. Sardinia was also lost: the region around Pisa did not permit the city to recover from the loss of thousands of sailors. Pisa never had enough manpower for their ships, while Liguria guaranteed enough sailors to Genoa. Goods continued to be traded, albeit in reduced quantity, but the end came when the Arno started to change course, preventing the galleys to reach the city's port up the river. It seems also that nearby area became infested with malaria.
Always Ghibelline, Pisa tried to build up its power in the course of the 14th century and even managed to defeat Florence in the Battle of Montecatini (1315). Eventually, however, divided by internal struggles and weakened by the loss of its mercantile strength, Pisa was conquered by Florence in 1406. In 1409 Pisa was the seat of a council trying to set the question of the Great Schism. Furthermore in the 15th century, access to the sea became more and more difficult, as the port was silting up and was cut off from the sea. When in 1494 Charles VIII of France invaded the Italian states to claim Naples, Pisa grabbed the opportunity to reclaim its independence as the Second Pisan Republic. But the new freedom did not last long. After fifteen years of battles and sieges, Pisa was reconquered by Florence in 1509. Its role of major port of Tuscany went to Livorno. Pisa acquired a mainly, though secondary, cultural role spurred by the presence of a renowned University created in 1343. Its decline is clearly shown by its population, which has remained almost constant since the Middle Ages.
Pisa was the birthplace of the founder of modern physics, Galileo Galilei. It is still the seat of an archbishopric; it has become a light industrial centre and a railway hub. It suffered repeated destruction during World War II.

Campo dei Miracoli
The Campo dei Miracoli ("Field of Miracles") is a wide, walled area at the heart of the city of Pisa, recognized as one of the main centers for Mediaeval art in the world. Partly paved and partly grassed, it is dominated by four great religious edifices: the Duomo, the Leaning Tower (the cathedral's campanile), the Baptistery and the Camposanto. It is otherwise known as Piazza del Duomo ("Cathedral Square").

Leaning Tower of Pisa
The Leaning Tower of Pisa (Italian: Torre pendente di Pisa or simply Torre di Pisa) is the campanile, or bell tower, of the Italian city of Pisa's cathedral.
The tower was intended to stand vertically, to serve as a bell tower, but began leaning soon after construction started in August of 1173. It is situated behind the Cathedral and it is the third structure in Pisa's Campo dei Miracoli (field of Miracles).
The height of the tower is 55.86 m from the ground on the lowest side and 56.70 m on the highest side. The width of the walls at the base is 4.09 m and at the top 2.48 m. Its weight is estimated at 14,500 tonnes. The tower has 294 steps.

Leaning Tower of Pisa - History
The construction of the Tower of Pisa was performed in three stages over a period of about 200 years. Construction of the first floor of the white marble campanile began on August 9, 1173, a period of military success and prosperity. This first floor is surrounded by pillars with classical capitals, leaning against blind arches.
There is controversy about the identity of the architect of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. For many years the design was attributed to Guglielmo and Bonanno Pisano, a well known twelfth century resident artist of Pisa, famous for his bronze casting, particularly in the Pisa Duomo. Bonanno Pisano left Pisa in 1185 to Monreale, Sicily, only to come back and die in his home town. His sarcophagus at the foot of the tower was discovered in 1820.
After the third floor was built in 1178, the tower acquired a lean, due to a mere three-meter foundation in weak, unstable subsoil. The design of this tower was flawed from the beginning. Construction was halted for almost 100 years because the Pisans were almost continually engaged in battles with Genoa, Lucca and Florence. This allowed for the underlying soil to settle, otherwise the tower would almost certainly have toppled. In 1198 some clocks were temporarily installed on the unfinished construction.
In 1272 construction was resumed by the Giovanni di Simone, architect of the Camposanto. Another four floors were built at an angle to compensate for the tilt. Construction again stopped in 1284, when the Pisans were defeated by the Genoans in the battle of Meloria.
Only in 1372 was the last floor, the bell-chamber, built by Tommasso di Andrea Pisano and bells installed. He succeeded in harmonizing the Gothic elements of the bell-chamber with the Romanesque style of the tower. There are seven bells, one for each note of the musical scale. The largest one was installed in 1655.
Galileo Galilei is said to have dropped two cannon balls of different masses from this tower to demonstrate their descending speed was independent of their mass. This story, though reported by Galileo's own student, is widely considered to be a myth.
In 1838 the architect Alessandro Della Gherardesca excavated a walkway around the tower to make the base of the tower visible again. This caused a flooding of the base and again an increase in the inclination.
Benito Mussolini ordered the tower be returned to a vertical position, so concrete was poured into its foundation. The results were unexpected and sank the tower further into the soft soil.
During World War II, the U.S. army destroyed nearly all towers in Pisa due to the potential threat from snipers. The Leaning Tower was scheduled to be blown up as well; a last-minute order to retreat prevented the destruction.
On February 27, 1964, the government of Italy requested aid in preventing the tower from toppling. A multinational task force of engineers, mathematicians and historians was assigned and met on the Azores islands to discuss stabilization methods. After over two decades of work on the subject, the tower was closed to the public in January 1990. In the time that the tower was closed the bells were removed to relieve some weight and cables were cinched around the third level and anchored several hundred meters away. Apartments and houses in the path of the tower were vacated for safety concerns. After a decade of corrective reconstruction and stabilization efforts the tower was reopened to the public on December 15, 2001. Many methods were proposed to stabilize the tower including the addition of 800 metric tons of lead counterweights to the raised end of the base. The final solution to correcting the lean was to remove 38 m³ of soil from underneath the raised end. The tower has been declared stable for at least another 300 years.

The Duomo
The heart of the Campo dei Miracoli is the Duomo, the medieval cathedral, entitled to St. Mary. This is a five-naved basilica with a three-naved transept.
It was begun in 1064 by the architect Buscheto and is the originator of the distinctive Pisan Romanesque style in architecture. The mosaics of the interior show a strong Byzantine influence, while the pointed arches point to Muslim influences.
The façade, of grey marble and white stone set with discs of coloured marble, was built by a master Rainaldo, as indicated by a write above the middle door: Rainaldus prudens operator.
The massive bronze main doors were made in the workshops of Giambologna, but visitors actually enter through the Portale di San Ranieri (St. Ranieri's Gate), opposite the Leaning Tower. Made in around 1180 by Bonanno Pisano, this doorway was actually moved from its original place opposite the Baptistery when Giambologna's doors were erected.
Above the doors there are four rows of open galleries with, on top, statues of Madonna with Child and, on the corners, the Four evangelists. One of these galleries contains the tomb of Buscheto.
The interior is faced with black and white marble and has a gilded ceiling and a frescoed dome. It was largely redecorated after a fire in 1595, which destroyed most of the medieval art works.
The impressive mosaic, in the apse, of Christ in Majesty, flanked by the Blessed Virgin and St. John the Evangelist, which was completed by Cimabue in 1302, survived the fire however. It evokes the mosaics in the church of Monreale, Sicily. The cupola, at the intersection of the nave and the transept, was decorated by Riminaldi showing the ascension of the Blessed Virgin. Galileo is believed to have formulated his theory about the movement of a pendulum by watching the swinging of the huge incense lamp (not the present one) hanging from the ceiling of the nave. The impressive granite Corinthian columns between the nave and the aisle came originally from the mosque of Palermo, captured by the Pisans in 1063.
The coffer ceiling of the nave was replaced after the fire of 1595. The present gold-decorated ceiling carries the coat of arms of the Medici.
The elaborately carved pulpit (1302-1310), which also survived the fire, was the masterpiece of Giovanni Pisano. It was packed away during the redecoration and was not rediscovered and re-erected until 1926. It shows nine scenes from the New Testament, carved in white marble with a chiaroscuro effect. It contains a bold, naturalistic depiction of a naked Hercules
The church also contains the mummified body of St Ranieri, Pisa's patron saint, and the tomb of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII, carved by Tino da Camaino in 1315.
The building, as several in Pisa, is also slightly tilting since the construction.

The Baptistery
The Baptistery, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, stands opposite the west end of the Duomo. The round Romanesque building was begun in the mid 12th century : 1153 Mense August fundata fuit haec ("In the month of August 1153 was set up here..."). It was built in Romanesque style by an architect known as Deotisalvi ("God Save You"). His name is mentioned on a pillar inside, as Diotosalvi magister. It was not, however, finished until the 14th century, when the loggia, the top storey and the dome were added in Gothic style by Nicola Pisano and Giovanni Pisano. It is the largest baptistery in Italy. Its circumference measures 107.25 m. Taking into account the statue of St. John the Baptist (attributed to Turino di Sano) on top of the dome, it is even a few centimetres higher than the Leaning Tower.
The portal, facing the facade of the cathedral, is flanked by two classical columns, while the inner jambs are executed in Byzantine style. The lintel is divided in two tiers. The lower one depicts several episodes in the life of St. John the Baptist, while the upper one shows Christ between the Madonna and St John the Baptist, flanked by angels and the evangelists.
The immensity of the interior is overwhelming, but it is surprisingly plain and lacks decoration. It has a notable acoustics also.
The octagonal font at the centre dates from 1246 and was made by Guido Bigarelli da Como. The bronze sculpture of St. John the Baptist at the centre of the font, is a remarkable work by Italo Griselli.
The pulpit was sculpted between 1255-1260 by Nicola Pisano, father of Giovanni Pisano, the artist who produced the pulpit in the Duomo. The scenes on the pulpit, and especially the classical form of the naked Hercules, show at best Pisano's qualities as the most important precursor of Italian renaissance sculpture.

The Camposanto
The Camposanto monumentale (monumental sacred field) lies at the northern edge of the Campo. It is a walled cemetery, which many claim is the most beautiful cemetery in the world. It is said to have been built around a shipload of sacred soil from Golgotha, brought back to Pisa from the 4th Crusade by the archbishop Ubaldo de' Lanfranchi in the 12th century.
The building itself dates from a century later and was erected over the earlier burial ground. The building of this huge, oblong Gothic cloister began in 1278 by the architect Giovanni di Simone. He died in 1284 when Pisa suffered a defeat in a naval battle of Meloria against the Genoans. The cemetery was only completed in 1464. The outer wall is composed of 43 blind arches. There are two doorways. The one on the right is crowned by an gracious Gothic tabernacle. It contains the Virgin Mary with Child, surrounded by four saints. It is the work from the second half of the 14th century by a follower of Giovanni Pisano. Most of the tombs are under the arcades, although a few are on the central lawn. The inner court is surrounded by elaborate round arches with slender mullions and plurilobed tracery.
It contained a huge collection of Roman sculptures and sarcophagi, but now there are only 84 left. The walls were once covered in frescoes, the first were applied in 1360, the last about three centuries later. The Stories of the Old Testament by Benozzo Gozzoli (15th century) were situated in the north gallery, wile the south arcade was famous for the Stories of the Genesi by Piero di Puccio (end 15th century). The most remarkable fresco is the realistic The Triumph of Death, the work of an unknown master, called Maestro del Trionfo delle Morte. But on 27 July 1944 incendiary bombs dropped by Allied aircraft set the roof on fire and covered them in molten lead, all but destroying them. Since 1945 restoration works have been going on and now the Camposanto has been brought back to its original state.