Pisa is the most misunderstood city in Italy. Visitors arrive, photograph the Leaning Tower from the correct angle (arms outstretched, appearing to push or support), check off Campo dei Miracoli, and leave after two hours. They have seen approximately 15% of what makes Pisa interesting. The Leaning Tower is extraordinary and worth your time. Campo dei Miracoli is extraordinary. The Cathedral is one of the most significant Romanesque buildings in Italy. But the city beyond the Campo, the medieval streets, the university (one of Italy's oldest, founded 1343), the Arno embankment with its painted medieval palaces, the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo with the finest collection of Pisan Romanesque painting anywhere, all of this is ignored by 95% of visitors and is available to anyone who stays longer than a morning.
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Campo dei Miracoli: What You're Actually Looking At
Campo dei Miracoli (Field of Miracles) is the medieval religious complex of Pisa, built on a large lawn outside the original city walls, which gave it the space to develop as an ensemble rather than squeezing into the urban fabric. The four buildings: the Cathedral (Duomo, begun 1063), the Baptistery (begun 1152), the Leaning Tower / Campanile (begun 1173), and the Camposanto (monumental cemetery, begun 1278). All four together form one of the most complete medieval religious ensembles in Europe. Most visitors focus on the Tower. The Cathedral is architecturally more significant, the Baptistery acoustically extraordinary (the circular dome was designed to amplify a single voice, guards demonstrate this every 30 minutes), and the Camposanto contains frescoes of the 14th century (the Triumph of Death cycle, damaged in 1944 but partially preserved) that are among the most important in the Italian medieval tradition.
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The Leaning Tower: The Essential Facts
The Torre di Pisa began tilting during construction because the soil on the south side is softer than on the north, the construction was stopped and restarted three times over nearly 200 years, with the architects introducing deliberate counter-tilts in the upper sections that actually prevented the tower from continuing to lean further. The tower leans approximately 3.97 degrees from vertical (reduced from a maximum of 5.5 degrees before the 1990-2001 stabilization intervention). It is 56 metres tall on the low side, 57 metres on the high side. Climbing it: 294 steps, ticket €20, advance booking mandatory at opapisa.it. The climb takes 20-30 minutes and the view from the top is one of the finest in Tuscany. Campo dei Miracoli below, the city of Pisa, the Arno valley, and the Apuan Alps on clear days.
Questions About Pisa
How long should I spend in Pisa?
Campo dei Miracoli (Cathedral, Baptistery, Tower climb, Camposanto): 3-4 hours minimum. Adding the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo (30 minutes from the Campo on foot): 1.5 hours. The Arno embankment and the historic center: 1-2 hours. A full day gives you Pisa properly. Two hours gives you the photograph and the sense that you've seen Italy when you've seen a car park with a famous building.
Is Pisa worth visiting beyond the Leaning Tower?
Significantly. The Museo Nazionale di San Matteo contains the finest collection of Pisan Romanesque sculpture and painting in existence, works by Cimabue, Simone Martini, Masaccio (his early San Paolo), and the extraordinary painted crosses of the Pisan school that influenced all of central Italian painting in the 13th century. The museum is in a former convent on the Arno embankment, five minutes' walk from the medieval Ponte di Mezzo. Almost no one visits it. Ticket €5.
How do I get to Pisa?
By train from Florence: 50 minutes direct, €9, runs every 30 minutes. From Lucca: 30 minutes, €4. From Rome: 3h direct (Frecciarossa) or 2h30 with connection. Pisa Centrale station is 2km from Campo dei Miracoli, walk (25 minutes) or take bus LAM Rossa (€1.50, 10 minutes). Pisa International Airport (Galileo Galilei) is 3km from the city center, shuttle, taxi, or the Pisa Mover people-mover (€2.70, 5 minutes to Pisa Centrale).
What is the history of the Leaning Tower?
Construction of the bell tower of Pisa Cathedral began in 1173. The tilt began within a few years due to soft alluvial soil on the south side. Construction was halted in 1178 with three stories complete. Resumed in 1272 with engineers building upward on a slight northward lean to compensate. Halted again during wars. Completed (with the bell chamber) in 1372. The tower was a problem from the beginning, and was never demolished or corrected because the city had already invested too much in it. The 1990-2001 stabilization removed 70 tons of soil from the north side and reduced the lean from 5.5 to 3.97 degrees, giving the tower an estimated safe life of another 300 years. Galileo Galilei, born in Pisa in 1564, allegedly performed his famous gravity experiment (dropping objects of different weights from the tower) here. Modern historians consider the story apocryphal. The experiment is documented in his writings but the tower location is almost certainly legendary.
Curiosità su Pisa
Pisa era nel Medioevo una delle quattro Repubbliche Marinare d'Italia (con Venezia, Genova, Amalfi), le città-stato mercantili che controllavano il commercio mediterraneo tra il X e il XIII secolo. La sua decadenza fu causata dalla sconfitta navale nella Battaglia della Meloria (1284) contro Genova, che distrusse la flotta pisana e causò la morte e cattura di gran parte della popolazione maschile adulta della città. Il Camposanto di Pisa fu costruito usando terra portata dalla Terra Santa, terra su cui, secondo la tradizione, i crociati seppellivano i loro morti, credendo che un corpo sepolto in questa terra si decomponesse in 24 ore piuttosto che nei tempi normali. L'idea della terra santa come accelerante della decomposizione è bizzarra ma medievalmente coerente con la teologia della resurrezione corporale. Vedi anche: Tuscany · Florence · Lucca.
