TOP 23 best attractions in Pisa

Pisa is one of the most famous cities in Tus­cany, where the flow of tourists does not dry out.

Things to do in Pisa

Those who want to enjoy the grandeur of archi­tec­ture should go to the main square Piaz­za dei Mira­coli, where the icon­ic sights of the city are con­cen­trat­ed: the Duo­mo, the famous lean­ing tow­er, the bap­tis­tery and oth­er archi­tec­tur­al gems that form a sin­gle ensem­ble.

Pisa has a large num­ber of church­es. Built in a spe­cial man­ner, they will attract con­nois­seurs of antiq­ui­ty and every­thing beau­ti­ful in gen­er­al:

• San­ta Maria del­la Spina is notable for its intri­cate facade dec­o­ra­tion.
• San­to Ste­fano dei Cav­a­lieri is the only exam­ple of the Renais­sance style in all of Tus­cany. Inside are rare fres­coes and paint­ings.

A vis­it to a muse­um should be on the must-do list of every cul­tured per­son. For exam­ple, Ospedale Nuo­vo di San­to Spir­i­to keeps stun­ning sinopia, and San Mat­teo is the rich­est trea­sury of medieval arti­facts.

The sights of Pisa have a spe­cial atmos­phere. A walk through the old quar­ters and embank­ments will delight aes­thetes and roman­tics. Bor­go Stret­to — the charm of old build­ings, nar­row streets and restau­rants. The San Mar­ti­no quar­ter is an open-air muse­um with palaz­zos, church­es and squares.

Churches and cathedrals

duomo

The majes­tic cathe­dral, con­se­crat­ed in hon­or of the Annun­ci­a­tion of the Vir­gin, is the dom­i­nant fea­ture of the Field of Mir­a­cles (Piaz­za dei Mira­coli). The con­struc­tion of the tem­ple began in 1064, the work was entrust­ed to the archi­tect Bus­que­to. He man­aged to cre­ate a build­ing in a new unique style, which lat­er became known as Pisano-Romanesque.

The snow-white facade is dec­o­rat­ed with gray and col­ored mar­ble inserts. The intri­cate orna­ment was invent­ed by the mas­ter Rainal­do, who per­pet­u­at­ed his name right above the entrance to the cathe­dral. On the west­ern facade there are 4 rows of gal­leries and a stat­ue of the Madon­na, stat­ues of four evan­ge­lists are installed in the cor­ners of the com­po­si­tion. On the east side ris­es a copy of the grif­fin. The orig­i­nal, made in the 11th cen­tu­ry, is kept in the muse­um of the cathe­dral.

The dark inte­ri­or con­trasts with the radi­ant exte­ri­or. The decor is dom­i­nat­ed by black mar­ble with snow-white veins. There is a huge fres­co on the ceil­ing. Most of the orig­i­nal Renais­sance works were lost in a fire. For­tu­nate­ly, the mosa­ic escaped this sad fate to the lim­it. The pan­el depicts the Moth­er of God and the Apos­tle John.

leaning tower of pisa

The lean­ing tow­er, which is the main dec­o­ra­tion of the Field of Mir­a­cles, is actu­al­ly a bell tow­er. How­ev­er, it was erect­ed at a respect­ful dis­tance from the cathe­dral, which is not typ­i­cal for reli­gious archi­tec­ture. The con­struc­tion of the tow­er began in 1173 and end­ed almost two cen­turies lat­er. The work was car­ried out for a long time due to the mov­ing clay soil, and the struc­ture began to “fall” after the con­struc­tion of the third floor.

The height of the struc­ture is approx­i­mate­ly 56 m, 294 steps lead to the top, and the tow­er roll is 5 degrees. Inside there is a series of cov­ered gal­leries with arch­es dec­o­rat­ed with bas-reliefs, and three spi­ral stair­cas­es.

Upstairs is the bel­fry, where the heav­i­est bell weighs 3.5 tons, and the old­est is over 400 years old. It is thanks to the mas­sive bells that form the cen­ter of grav­i­ty that the tow­er con­tin­ues to stand. Although the struc­ture is con­stant­ly mov­ing: its roll either decreas­es or increas­es.

Church of San Paolo a Ripa d’Arno

It is the old­est church in Pisa and an out­stand­ing exam­ple of Romanesque archi­tec­ture in Tus­cany. The exact date of the con­struc­tion of the tem­ple is unknown, but the first men­tion of it dates back to 1032. Also known as the Duo­mo Vec­chio, the church went through sev­er­al own­ers: it was owned by a monastery, a hos­pi­tal, pri­vate­ly owned, and even­tu­al­ly became pub­lic.

In the XI-XII cen­turies, the first seri­ous recon­struc­tion took place, as a result of which the church began to resem­ble the main Cathe­dral on the Field of Mir­a­cles.

The next restora­tion was car­ried out in the 19th cen­tu­ry. Now the build­ing has the shape of a cross with side aisles, a cen­tral nave and gran­ite columns from the island of Elba — nat­ur­al mate­r­i­al from this region has a spe­cial beau­ty. Inside, it is worth see­ing a 13th-cen­tu­ry cross, 14th-cen­tu­ry fres­coes, and an ancient Roman sar­coph­a­gus.

Santa Maria della Spina

The cham­bered Goth­ic church, built in the first quar­ter of the 13th cen­tu­ry, was orig­i­nal­ly called San­ta Maria di Pon­teno­vo. The name “spina” (trans­lat­ed from Ital­ian as “thorn”) appeared in 1333, when a frag­ment of a crown of thorns from the head of Christ was brought to the tem­ple. Alas, the rel­ic was lost.

In 1871, the church was demol­ished brick by brick and moved to a new loca­tion. Over time, the Arno riv­er changed its course and began to flood the shrine. As a result of the move, the tem­ple has changed, but remains the bright­est exam­ple of Goth­ic archi­tec­ture in Europe.

The rec­tan­gu­lar build­ing is gen­er­ous­ly lined with mul­ti-col­ored mar­ble. The facade is dec­o­rat­ed with stone canopies and arched nich­es, rose win­dows, columns, open­work bas-reliefs and count­less stat­ues. The most promi­nent are the Madon­na and Child sur­round­ed by angels and Christ with the apos­tles. But the inte­ri­or dec­o­ra­tion has always been ascetic. Even the paint­ing on the ceil­ing appeared dur­ing the restora­tion process in the 19th cen­tu­ry. The main rel­ic of the church is the stat­ue of the Madon­na of the Rose.

Church of Santo Stefano dei Cavalieri

This is the only church in Pisa built in the Renais­sance style. It was erect­ed in 1569 by order of Cosi­mo de’ Medici for the knights of the Order of Saint Stephen. Don Gio­van­ni de Medici, the son of Cosi­mo, who was born out of wed­lock, worked on the facade of the build­ing. Columns, arch­es and bas-reliefs impress with mas­ter­ful exe­cu­tion.

The inte­ri­or is full of inter­est­ing details. Among them are 5 can­vas­es telling about the life of St. Stephen, and 6 ceil­ing paint­ings depict­ing epochal events in which the order took an active part.

Baptistery of San Giovanni

The exten­sion for bap­tisms is part of the archi­tec­tur­al com­plex of the Field of Mir­a­cles. The bap­tis­tery began to be erect­ed in 1152 and was com­plet­ed only two cen­turies lat­er. The Pisa Bap­tis­tery is the largest on the Apen­nine Penin­su­la. Its width is about 50 m, and its height is almost 108 m. The struc­ture is com­plete­ly lined with mar­ble.

The build­ing organ­i­cal­ly com­bines two archi­tec­tur­al styles at once: the bot­tom with round arch­es is made in Romanesque, and the top with lancet arch­es is in Goth­ic. Inside there is an octag­o­nal font of the XIII cen­tu­ry with a bronze stat­ue of John the Bap­tist in the cen­ter. It is note­wor­thy that the pul­pit for ser­mons is dec­o­rat­ed with fig­ures from ancient Roman myths.

Church of San Nicola

The church build­ing was built approx­i­mate­ly in 1097. And in the 17th cen­tu­ry it was rebuilt, adding sev­er­al altars and a chapel. The facade is dec­o­rat­ed with inter­est­ing details: blind arch­es and pilasters with­out cap­i­tals. Sam­ples of paint­ing of the XIV-XV cen­turies are stored inside. The most strik­ing works: “Madon­na and Child”, “Cru­ci­fix­ion” and “Annun­ci­a­tion”.

The church is con­nect­ed to the Torre de Can­tone tow­er by a cov­ered pas­sage — through it, mem­bers of the Medici fam­i­ly got into the church with­out going out­side.

Architecture

Palazzo della Carovana

Anoth­er name for this archi­tec­tur­al gem is Palaz­zo dei Cav­a­lieri. Once this palace belonged to the knights of the Order of St. Stephen, today it hous­es the High­er Nor­mal School (high­er edu­ca­tion­al and research insti­tu­tion) of Pisa. The out­er walls of the build­ing are gen­er­ous­ly dec­o­rat­ed with sgraf­fi­to draw­ings, stat­ues, as well as the coats of arms of the Medici fam­i­ly and the order. At the top of the facade are busts of the great rulers of Tus­cany.

The name of the palaz­zo is trans­lat­ed as “Palace of the Con­voy”. The knights of the Order of St. Stephen under­went 3‑year train­ing here, in order to then car­ry out an escort of mer­chant ships in the Mediter­ranean Sea, where pirates were out­ra­geous.

Campo Santo

The his­toric build­ing in Cathe­dral Square is also known as Cam­po San­to Mon­u­men­tale and Cam­po San­to Vec­chio. The lat­ter can be trans­lat­ed as “old ceme­tery”. They say that the build­ing stands on land brought from Gol­go­tha ​​by Arch­bish­op Ubal­do de Lan­franchi in the 12th cen­tu­ry — the cler­gy­man took part in the IV Cru­sade.

The buri­als them­selves are arranged in the wall under the arched gallery that forms the court­yard. Until the 18th cen­tu­ry, only rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the nobil­i­ty were buried in the ceme­tery.

Palazzo del Orologio

The “Palace of the Clock” attracts atten­tion with its char­ac­ter­is­tic shape, sim­i­lar to a half-opened book, and the clock in the cen­tral part of the facade. The lat­ter appeared here in 1696. The struc­ture that has sur­vived to this day is the result of numer­ous recon­struc­tions that last­ed sev­er­al cen­turies. Ini­tial­ly, there were 2 sep­a­rate tow­ers on the square, and only in the Mid­dle Ages did they unite.

The left one was called Palaz­zot­to del­la Justi­tia — the may­ors sat in it. The right one was named Gua­lan­di in hon­or of the fam­i­ly that lived there for a long time. There is a leg­end asso­ci­at­ed with this tow­er. Duke Ugoli­no was accused of high trea­son, impris­oned in a tow­er and doomed to death by star­va­tion. This event was reflect­ed in the 33rd chap­ter of “Hell” by D. Alighieri.

Palazzo al Borgo di Corliano

Beau­ti­ful vil­la locat­ed between Pisa and Luc­ca. The facade of the build­ing is dec­o­rat­ed with inter­est­ing draw­ings made in the 16th cen­tu­ry. Designed in the style of Man­ner­ism, they impress with a vari­ety of sub­jects. This is an image of birds, alle­gor­i­cal sym­bols and ripe fruits soaked in the hot Tus­can sun.

The inte­ri­or dec­o­ra­tion is the realm of lux­u­ry. The lob­by wel­comes you with mar­ble busts of the 18th cen­tu­ry depict­ing ancient Roman emper­ors. The halls and rooms are dec­o­rat­ed with skill­ful fres­coes, the sur­round­ings are com­ple­ment­ed by antique fur­ni­ture. The man­sion is sur­round­ed by a lux­u­ri­ous park with an area of ​​over 4 hectares.

Museums

Palazzo Blue

A lux­u­ri­ous 14th-cen­tu­ry man­sion in the his­toric cen­ter of Pisa has recent­ly turned into a muse­um with per­ma­nent and tem­po­rary exhi­bi­tions. The per­ma­nent exhi­bi­tion fea­tures icons, a col­lec­tion of coins, antique fur­ni­ture, objects of reli­gious wor­ship, sculp­tures and paint­ings of the 14th-20th cen­turies.

Ospedale Nuovo di Santo Spirito

The muse­um occu­pies a long brick build­ing in the Square of Mir­a­cles. A long time ago there was a hos­pi­tal, today it has moved to a new loca­tion. The cre­ation of the muse­um was pre­ced­ed by a cul­tur­al tragedy. Dur­ing World War II, Cam­po San­to was hit by a bomb.

The com­plex was bad­ly dam­aged, the unique fres­coes of the XIV-XVII cen­turies were espe­cial­ly dam­aged. To save the works of art, it was decid­ed to dis­man­tle. When the fres­coes were removed from the wall, sinopia (prepara­to­ry draw­ings) were revealed behind them. They turned out to be so beau­ti­ful and unusu­al that they were placed in a muse­um spe­cial­ly cre­at­ed for them.

National Museum of San Matteo

The Muse­um of San Mat­teo is locat­ed with­in the walls of the monastery of the same name, which ceased to exist. Its funds con­tain an invalu­able col­lec­tion of medieval arti­facts: reli­gious val­ues, ceram­ics, archae­o­log­i­cal finds, jew­el­ry and house­hold items. Of par­tic­u­lar note is the col­lec­tion of cross­es, wood­en bas-reliefs, sculp­tures by Tus­can mas­ters and a bible from 1168.

Palazzo Incontri Viti

The trav­el­er, phil­an­thropist and suc­cess­ful mer­chant Giuseppe Vit­ti bought the palaz­zo in 1850, recon­struct­ed it and placed in it lux­u­ri­ous items that he man­aged to acquire dur­ing his life. Art objects from the 1400s-1900s are on dis­play in 12 rooms, beau­ti­ful­ly fur­nished.

These are paint­ings, sculp­tures, porce­lain, house­hold items and decor. Many things have their own his­to­ry — they belonged to great peo­ple, for exam­ple, the table of Voltaire or the reli­quary of Cosi­mo III.

Interesting places

Quarter of San Martino

The old quar­ter will appeal to lovers of archi­tec­tur­al antiq­ui­ties. It is bet­ter to start the walk from the Lun­gar­no Galilei embank­ment. Its main attrac­tions are the Romanesque octag­o­nal tem­ple of the XII cen­tu­ry, the Palaz­zo Lan­franchi with huge coats of arms on the facade and the mar­ble well — the her­itage of the old hos­pi­tal.

The Lun­gar­no Fibonac­ci embank­ment is named after the great math­e­mati­cian. Here is the fortress of Fortez­za San­gal­lo, on the ter­ri­to­ry of which there is a huge gar­den of Gia­rdi­no Scot­to. And on Via San Mar­ti­no are the grandiose palaces of Cevoli and Tiz­zoni.

Piazza dei Cavalieri

Known as the Piaz­za des Knights, this square is one of Pisa’s main attrac­tions. It was built in the Mid­dle Ages on the site of an ancient Roman forum. Once upon a time, impor­tant decrees and news were announced here. Around the perime­ter of Piaz­za dei Cav­a­lieri are palaz­zos and ancient build­ings. The most sig­nif­i­cant are the Palaz­zo del­la Carovana, as well as the Palace of the Peo­ple and Elders.

Ponte di Mezzo bridge

There are always a lot of tourists on a small bridge over the Arno Riv­er. First, there are great views from here. Sec­ond­ly, this is the short­est and most pic­turesque road from the sta­tion to the Cathe­dral Square, where the main sights of the city are locat­ed.

Piazza dei Miracoli

Cathe­dral Square or Piaz­za dei Mira­coli (Field of Mir­a­cles) is the main point of attrac­tion for tourists. Here are the icon­ic sights of the city: the Duo­mo, the bap­tis­tery, the lean­ing tow­er, Cam­po San­to and the Muse­um of Syn­op­tia. Built of mar­ble and sur­round­ed by a green lawn, they look like an attrac­tive post­card from dis­tant wan­der­ings in Italy.

Borgo Stretto quarter

Locat­ed in the his­tor­i­cal part of Pisa, this quar­ter is the epit­o­me of medieval archi­tec­ture. Nar­row ornate streets where passers-by can bare­ly pass, back­yards, small cham­ber squares, tav­erns, del­i­catessen shops, sou­venir shops and old hous­es with adjoin­ing walls — that’s what attracts tourists here.

parks

Botanical Garden

Found­ed with the finan­cial sup­port of Duke Cosi­mo I de’ Medici, the botan­i­cal gar­den in Pisa is one of the old­est in Europe. Its area is over 3 hectares, it belongs to the city uni­ver­si­ty and is open for vis­its every day.

On the ter­ri­to­ry of the gar­den there are flowerbeds, green­hous­es, arti­fi­cial reser­voirs, green­hous­es, and an arbore­tum. The main attrac­tion is the build­ing of the Botan­i­cal Insti­tute of the end of the 16th cen­tu­ry. Its façade is rich­ly dec­o­rat­ed with seashells and ceram­ic mosaics.

Garden of Giardino Scotto

The citadel of Fortez­za San­gal­lo, built in the 15th cen­tu­ry, guard­ed the peace of the towns­peo­ple. Over time, it lost its sig­nif­i­cance, and a beau­ti­ful gar­den was laid out on its ter­ri­to­ry by order of Domeni­co Scot­to.

In fact, this is a land­scape park, on the appear­ance of which the archi­tect D. Kaluri worked. Along the fortress wall, he plant­ed lush Mediter­ranean veg­e­ta­tion and laid out even paths. Today, the gar­den has been sup­ple­ment­ed with play­grounds, pic­nic shel­ters and gaze­bos for relax­ation.

Natural Park of San Rossore Massaciuccoli

The park of region­al impor­tance stretch­es along the coasts of the provinces of Luc­ca and Pisa. Many species of birds live here, includ­ing rare and endan­gered ones. They have cho­sen local land­scapes: sandy beach­es, forests, swamps and lakes. On the ter­ri­to­ry of the park are the pic­turesque towns of Mas­saci­uc­coli and Torre del Lago.