A Piece of Pisa and a Dash of Lucca

January 21

Whenever you hear that the Florentines don’t like a particular city, expect it to be absolutely beautiful. Which leads us to Pisa. After an hour or so on the train, we arrived to almost sixty-degree weather (IN JANUARY. I simply cannot get over this!). We celebrated Shayla and Ruth’s birthdays with cappuccinos and pastries from Salza before trekking across town to the monument that Pisa is most famous for: the Leaning Tower.

But what you don’t see in everyone’s touristy photos is the magnificent Cathedral, Baptistery, and Churchyard behind the Bell Tower in the Piazza dei Miracoli. These structures lean as well, but it’s nowhere near as noticeable. There are blocks and columns of different colored marbles, some of which are still inscribed from previous use on the exteriors of each building. Being able to have these stones was considered prestigious, as if they were precious jewels in their walls.

The bell tower, cathedral, and churchyard

After gawking at the Bell Tower some more, Jodie ushered us into the Baptistery. There is a huge eight-sided baptismal basin in the center of the room and Nicola Pisano’s pulpit off to the side. I’ve studied this particular pulpit before, which can be confusing because Nicola’s narrative is not linear—on one panel, the Enunciation and the Nativity are interwoven. However, this pulpit, as well as the one that his son, Giovanni sculpted, has been extremely influential, especially in the work of Botticelli (example: the Modest Venus pose). Moreover, we were lucky enough to witness a demonstration of the amazing acoustics of the dome!

These cathedrals keep getting better and better. Pisa’s Cathedral is a five aisled basilica with a cross plan and a forest of columns. It is not entirely symmetrical, but it has heavily influenced by the rules dictated by the Council of Trent as well as the patronage of the Medici family. Off to the side were the relics of Saint Rainerius, who is the patron saint of Pisa. All of these relics are starting to creep me out…which is why I wasn’t exactly thrilled to walk through the Churchyard. The structure was gorgeous, but the floors are composed of family tombs. It was partially destroyed during World War II when a bomb accidentally went off nearby, causing the lead roof to melt all over the frescoes. The remains of these frescoes are still undergoing restoration, and we got to see two by Buffalmacco in one of the side rooms.

The interior of Pisa's Cathedral

While we didn’t get to go up in the Leaning Tower, we did manage to take several more touristy pictures before splitting up into groups for lunch. Sandwiches, as usual, but then we went back to Salza for dessert, where I got a small cannoli and a raspberry truffle. We had the rest of the afternoon free, and a lot of us ended up going to a Picasso exhibit at the Palazzo Blu. Which was absolutely astounding. The exhibit, which is called, “Ho voluto essere pittore e sono diventato Picasso” (“I wanted to be a painter and I became Picasso”), does not show off Picasso’s most famous artworks. Instead, it shows his creative process through sketches and lithographs. Seeing the progression of his work was absolutely amazing! There were two series that I found the most fascinating: one of a bull and another of two women, which combined and transformed from “normal” to cubism.

Picasso's Toro progression

After the exhibit, we fell into different groups, one group going back to Florence and the other to Lucca. I wanted to go to the Chagall exhibit in Lucca, but we had spent too much time in Pisa and there wasn’t enough time. However, Lucca is famous for having its original city walls still intact. We were a little disappointed that the walls weren’t as “wall-y” as we had expected (there’s a stone wall on one side with a sloping hill down into the city on the other), but nevertheless we enjoyed exploring. We didn’t have enough time to walk all the way around the wall due to the train schedule, so we picked a side street and went on a souvenir hunt.

The walls and a bell tower in Lucca

We arrived home just in time for dinner. I have to admit, there is one type of food that is better at home than in Italy: cheeseburgers.