Pisa and the Square of Miracles

THE SQUARE OF MIRACLES

The Piazza dei Miracoli (Square of Miracles) is a 22-acre walled complex with four sacred buildings: Battistero di San Giovanni (Baptistry of Saint John), Duomo di Pisa (Pisa Cathedral), Camposanto Monumentale (Monumental Cemetery) and Torre pendente di Pisa (Leaning Tower of Pisa, the bell tower for the cathedral.) Symbolically, the major structures found in the piazza allude to birth, life and death. Getting to the complex from the parking lot requires passing through a large, bazaar-like area, but  once you enter the portal to the Cathedral Square, the whole green, grassy complex spreads out before you in all its majesty. It’s very flat and easily walkable.

Approach to walled complex

Vendors outside the gate to the complex  

Looking back at the portal to the complex

Cemetery, Baptistry, Cathedral & Leaning Tower

HISTORY

The architectural style of the structures is mainly Romanesque, but there are also Moorish and Byzantine influences as well. Pisa was a mighty maritime power, and historians believe that travelers and sailors brought varied architectural influences to the city.  During the Middle Ages, Pisa was a wealthy place and undertook ambitious building projects, such as the Piazza dei Miracoli. Pisa was also victorious in many military conflicts, which brought wealth to the city. Then, in 1284, Pisa lost a devastating sea battle to Genoa and never fully recovered its glory days. In 1406, the Florentine army took control, and Pisa lost its  independence.  From the late Middle Ages, Pisa acquired a reputation as a place of learning and culture rather than as a naval and commercial power. 

  

BAPTISTRY 

(A building next to a church, used for baptism)

 Pisa's unusual round baptistry has a small cone on top of a dome, one dome piled on top of another, and topped by a gilt bronze John the Baptist.  The dome is covered in red tiles on the west side and in lead slabs on the east side. The Pisa Baptistry is an example of the Romanesque style--the lower section has rounded, blind arches--and the Gothic style--the upper sections have pointed arches. The Baptistry is constructed of marble, as is common in Italian architecture.

Busts of the prophets and saints on the Baptistry

Baptistry portal

CAMPO SANTO MONUMENTALE (Monumental Cemetery)

The graveyard is an ancient cemetery located on the north side of the Square of Miracles. According to ancient tradition, the graveyard was built on soil brought back from the Holy Land, in particular from the place where Jesus was crucified. It is said that the local archbishop Ubaldo de' Lanfranchi brought soil from the Golgotha Mountain (site of Mount Calvary) when he returned from a Crusade. The soil supposedly reduced a dead body into a skeleton in 24 hours. This was obviously desirable in a cemetery.  Campo Santo means “Holy Field.” 

The cemetery is a rectangular structure; the outer wall is composed of 43 blind arches, and there is an inner cloister with Gothic arcades. 

A Gothic tabernacle containing statues of the Virgin Mary and Child surrounded by four saints is located above the doorway to the cemetery. Within the cloister you’ll find many sarcophagi and Roman graves, used exclusively for the burial of prestigious Pisans.

  CATHEDRAL AND LEANING TOWER

Duomo di Pisa

The construction of the Pisa cathedral, also known as Duomo di Pisa, began in 1063. The marble façade of the cathedral is in the “Romanesque Pisa” style, but there are also Moorish and Byzantine influences as well. The façade features massive bronze gates which are covered in beautiful relief, depicting different biblical stories.  

Nave of the Cathedral

The bronze chandelier in the center of the nave is known as "Lampada di Galileo” (Galileo Lamp.) According to a popular story, Galileo was watching the chandelier-like lamp sway gently during Mass when the law of the pendulum occurred to him. Galileo timed the swings and realized the burner swung back and forth in the same amount of time regardless of how wide the arc. The original lamp, plainer and simpler, is kept in the nearby Camposanto.

Apse

The apse is decorated with a huge 13th-century mosaic of Christ Pantocrator (ruler of the universe in Byzantine church decoration.) “Christ in Majesty” is flanked by the Blessed Virgin and St. John the Evangelist. In the semi-dome of the apse, Christ is giving a blessing with his right hand and in his left hand holding  a bible quoting St John, chapter 8, verse 12 “Ego sum Lux Mundi” (I am the light of the world.) 

The 27 paintings behind the main altar depicting episodes from the Old Testament and stories of Christ were created from the 16th and 17th centuries by some of the foremost Tuscan artists, including Andrea del Sarto, il Sodoma and Domenico Beccafumi.

Contemporary pulpit/lectern in the Sanctuary

The contemporary altar, to the left of the pulpit, is a result of the liturgy reforms introduced in Vatican II in the late 1960s. Since then, the priest faces the people instead of saying Mass with his back to the people. Maybe the contemporary style would blend in better in a contemporary church.  

The granite Corinthian columns between the nave and the aisle came originally from the mosque of Palermo, captured by the Pisans in 1063.

A coffered ceiling has a series of gilded, sunken panels in the shape of a square. This ceiling is a wooden 17th-century ceiling painted and decorated with gold leaf and bearing the Medici coat of arms made by Domenico and Bartolomeo Atticciati.

The cupola, at the intersection of the nave and transept (arms of the cross),  shows the assumption of the Blessed Virgin into heaven. The transept crossing is covered by a painted oval dome.

THE PULPIT 

The pulpit by Giovanni Pisano, sculpted between 1301 and 1310,  is widely regarded as his greatest masterpiece. After the fire of 1595 it was packed away during the redecoration and was not rediscovered and re-erected until 1926.

The pulpit is supported by plain columns as well as statue-like columns known as caryatids (females) and telamons (males).

The upper part of the pulpit contains reliefs depicting dramatic scenes from the New Testament, from the Annunciation to the Crucifixion. Nine scenes are carved in white marble with a chiaroscuro (contrasted light and shadow) effect.

The Holy Tabernacle in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament 

The center aisle has a Cosmatesque marble (geometric stonework) surface.

Tomb of Saint Rainerius 

The church contains the bones of Saint Rainerius, patron saint of Pisa and the patron saint of all travelers.

Funerary monument to Francesco Pannocchieschi d’Elci, Archbishop of Pisa from 1636 to 1663, by Ferdinando Vacca

 Below the sarcophagus, just above the inscription, is a skull with wings, a frequent funereal decoration, which symbolizes mortality beyond death (in the hereafter in heaven.) 

Niche with white marble tomb of Nicodemo Camalelli by Bartolomeo Ammannati and above the sarcophagus is a  lunetta (half-moon-shaped space) with the Eternal Father.

Holy water font with Saint John the Baptist holding a crucifix staff

Inside Walls

After the fire of 1595, a lot of restoration projects contributed to the structure’s present appearance. In the early 18th century, the redecoration of the inside walls of the cathedral began with large paintings, the "quadroni", depicting stories of holy men, women and saints of Pisa. These works were made by the principal artists of the era. 

Martyrdom of a Franciscan friar

Croce e santi (Cross and Saints) by Giovanni Battista Paggi

Spirito santo e santi (Holy Spirit and Saints) by Domenico Passignano

Rescue at sea

Madonna delle grazie e santi
(Our Lady of Grace and Saints) Giovanni Antonio Sogliani (initiated by  Andrea del Sarto) 

Disputa del sacramento 

(Disputation of the Holy Sacrament) by Francesco Vanni

Woman kneeling to receive nun’s habit

Madonna delle grazie e santi (Our Lady of Grace with Saints) by Andrea del Sarto

Black marble sarcophagus with bas relief of Christ’s Resurrection from the dead 

The Capitoline Wolf is a bronze sculpture of a she-wolf suckling twin human infants. Since ancient times, the image of the twins, Romulus and Remus,  being suckled by a she-wolf, has been a symbol of the city of Rome and the Roman people.

Modern artwork

Leaning Tower

The Leaning Tower is actually a free-standing bell tower, 55 meters high. It has a five-degree tilt. There are  294 steps to reach the top. Each of the levels has galleries and arcades except for the last one, where there are 7 bells. It took almost 200 years to build, but was already listing when it was unveiled in 1372. Over time, the tilt, caused by a layer of weak subsoil, steadily worsened until it was finally halted by a major stabilization project in the 1990s. Experts believe that this will guarantee the tower's future for the next three centuries.In 1589, Galileo Galilei moved to Pisa to teach mathematics there. For the next three years, he carried out his famous experiments to unravel the mysteries of gravity by dropping objects from the Leaning Tower.

The Leaning Tower, Becky and the back of the cathedral with scaffolding

The tower

The tower with a halo

Soldiers standing guard at the base of the tower

Everything’s Coming up Tulips - The Tulip Museum

Tulips came to the Netherlands around 1550 from Istanbul, of all places. In the lavish palaces in 16th century Istanbul, the sultans collected, nurtured and displayed large quantities of tulips. This beautiful flower, called “tulip” after the Turkish word for “turban,” was brought to Holland from Turkey and quickly became widely popular. Tulip prices steadily rose with their growing popularity, and bulbs were purchased at higher and higher prices by speculators who planned to turn around and sell them for a profit. By about 1610 a single bulb of a new variety was acceptable as dowry for a bride, and a flourishing brewery in France was exchanged for one bulb of the variety “Tulipe Brasserie.” During Tulipmania, 1636-1637, tulip bulb prices rose to incredible heights before collapsing and plunging the Dutch economy into a crisis that lasted for many years. 

Canal Houseboat with directions to the Tulip Museum

I would never have known there was such a thing as a “Tulip Museum” if I hadn’t seen a sign on a charming houseboat in a canal across from the Anne Frank House. The sign said that the museum was 100 meters away and had an arrow pointing in the correct direction.

Closeup of houseboat

Bikes in front of the Tulip Museum

Bikes and tulips--there are bike paths right alongside streets throughout Amsterdam, and bikers rule. If you walk in the bike path, you are taking your life in your own hands.  

Front of the Tulip Museum

The store front indicated that it was the Amsterdam Tulip Museum, but it was really a gift shop with a small museum on a lower level. 

Cheese Museum

If tulips aren’t your thing, you can always pop into the Cheese Museum, which is right next door to the Tulip Museum. 

Flowers in front of the museum

These frilly tulips were on display in front of the museum/shop.

Tulip Gift Shop

The gift shop was very busy, with a lot of people buying tulip bulbs, vases, cards, mugs, plates, linens and tulip-related notions. It was a little overwhelming to see so many items with a tulip theme in a fairly small space.

Miscellaneous small items bearing a tulip motif in the gift shop, including Christmas ornaments (!), fridge magnets, tea towels and note cards.

Dishware with a tulip motif on display in the gift shop

A wall display in the gift shop with a number of different vessels in which to display tulips

A wall of tulip pictures in the museum proper 

The museum was down a flight of stairs, but people were more interested in buying tulip items than in learning about tulips, so I was alone.  The displays in the museum were delightful and varied. I never knew tulips had such a fascinating history. 

Processing of tulip bulbs

Tulip bulbs were and are big business in the Netherlands. On the shelves are authentic bulb industry artifacts and old-time photos which recorded the bulb-processing system. 

Bulb-processing artifacts and old photos

Loading up the bulbs for transport

Tulip bulbs on display

A Turkish boy in the Sultan’s garden

Sultan Solimano XII

Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent (1494-1566) kept his tulips in his “Abode of Bliss,” an inner sanctum at the Topkapi Palace, planted exclusively for his enjoyment. 

Model of the Sultan’s Ottoman palace

Display of Arabic porcelain with a tulip motif

Close-up of the porcelain

A Rembrandt painting of his wife, Flora .

Rembrandt painted his wife Saskia as Flora, goddess of spring and flowers. This painting dates from 1634, the year of their marriage and the beginning of Tulipmania in Holland. Saskia is depicted with a flamed red and white tulip drooping from her floral headdress.

According to myth, Flora had been a notorious courtesan in the earliest days of Rome. When she died, she left much of her earnings to the city, and in return, the grateful Romans deified her. She became both the goddess of flowers and the protector of prostitutes. Seventeenth century Dutch pamphleteers delighted in drawing parallels between Flora and tulips. Flora, they reminded their public, had made a practice of selling herself to the highest bidder, and her price had risen constantly until it was so steep that no man could afford to keep her to himself for long.

Cabinet of Curiosities, featuring tulips. To the left of the cabinet is a list of Tulipmania prices. 

Tiers of floral paper cuttings of an Ottoman garden

Tulips displayed in tall glass vases

Tulips in a glass vase

Pyramid tulip vase

To this day in modern Turkey the tulip is still considered the embodiment of perfection and beauty.

The museum was informative, and the displays were unique. You will probably never again see an assemblage of exhibits solely devoted to tulips. The museum is a must-see if you are a tulip devotee, if you would like to buy a tulip memento of Holland for yourself or as a gift, or if you would like to gain a new appreciation for the history of tulips and their effect on the economy of the Netherlands.