Visitors arrive into this old university town(population 90. 000) and visit the Piazza dei Miracoli (Square of Miracles) where the tower, the cathedral and baptistery form the city’s main attraction. Pisa is best known for the world famous Leaning Tower but there are also a lot of interesting attractions like Duomo di Pisa (Cathedral of Pisa), Campo Santo Monumentale (Monumental Cemetery) and University botanical garden.
University botanical garden
University botanical garden – Pisa, Italy. Image/Chris.
Open: weekday mornings and is free to the public. University botanical garden is the first university botanical garden of Europe, created by the will of Cosimo de Medici in 1544.
Museo di San Matteo
Museo di San Matteo – Pisa. Image/Doug Urban.
History and art museum, which houses almost all of the original artwork from all the churches in and around Pisa. Although fairly small, the museum is one of the biggest for Tuscan Renaissance art, hosted in the rooms of the San Matteo monastery.
Piazza dei Cavalieri
La Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa – Piazza dei Cavalieri, Pisa. Image/chuci.
Piazza dei Cavalieri – a small town square with many historical buildings(Palazzo della Carovana, Chiesa di Santo Stefano, Palazzo Carovana, Palazzo dell’Orologio, Church of San Rocco, the Rectory, and Palazzo dei Dodici) that hosted the political powers of the city in the middle ages and Renaissance, but most of them are not accessible to tourists, as they are now property of the University of Pisa or Scuola Normale Superiore (a prestigious elitary school).
The Piazza dei Miracoli(Field of Miracles)
The Piazza dei Miracoli or Field of Miracles. Image/Giovanni.
The Piazza dei Miracoli (Field of Miracles) located to the north of central Pisa. The Piazza it’s an UNESCO World Heritage site and contains the city’s most famous sights:
Torre Pendente (Leaning Tower) – The structure was originally conceived as the cathedral’s bell tower. Construction began in 1173 and the tower started leaning soon afterwards due to subsidence of the ground underneath its base.
Duomo di Pisa (Cathedral of Pisa) – Fine Romanesque style with double aisles and a cupola, a huge apse mosaic partly by Cimabue, and a fine pulpit by Giovanni Pisano in late Gothic / early Renaissance style. The Duomo contains artwork by Giambologna, Della Robbia, and other major artists of that time.
Battistero (Baptistry) – Large round Romanesque dome with many sculptured decorations and a fine view up top.
Campo Santo Monumentale (Monumental Cemetery). a huge cemetery building with lots of interesting art, including a collection of ancient Roman sarcophagi and splendid medieval frescoes by the «Master of the Triumph of Death».
Museo del Opera del Duomo – has sculptures and paintings formerly preserved in the Cathedral and the cemetery.
