Janet Ross e Nelly Erichsen – Pisa, The Appearance of the City … – 5

The Silhouette of Pisa from the north – From the book “The Story of Pisa” by Janet Ross and Nelly Erichsen – Illustrade by Nelly Erichsen – London : J.M. Dent & Co, Aldine House, 29 and 30 Bedfod Street Covent Garden, W.C. – 1909

 

The great group of the Duomo, the Baptistery, the Leaning Tower and the Campo Santo, the most perfect  expression of the Pisan mind, is rather curiously placed in an outlying corner, beyond the reach of the encroaching waters of the Arno that so often spread themselves over the lower portion of the city, and of the enemies who so frequently approached it by the undefended suburbs on the south bank.

In their isolation they surely present the solitary instance in Italy of a great cathedral surrounded with a wide space of greensward ; a worthy setting, although it was probably the intention of the builders to pave the whole with precious marbles.

Any consideration of Pisan architecture would be incomplete without a reference to the mysterious Guilds of Comacine builders who spread southwards from Como in the early Middle Ages.

It is hard to tell exactly how far their influence is to be seen in Pisa, while it is evident that they had some hand in most of the important buildings, and that on the Baptistery and the churches of SS. Cosimo and Damiano they have left hieroglyphs that very possibly are their masons’ marks.

Of the multitude of mediaeval towers that crowded the city many remain, but nearly all were so truncated by order of the Florentines after 1509 that they hardly rise above the houses and are difficult to discover.

A few here and there have evaded the general destruction, and still rise proudly into the air to remind us of what the others were like.

Although regrettable to the student of the past, Pisa has no doubt benefitted by their loss, for the old town with those great shafts closely packed together can have been neither sunny, airy, nor safe.

[…]

 

( From the book “The Story of Pisa” by Janet Ross and Nelly Erichsen – Illustrade by Nelly Erichsen – London : J.M. Dent & Co, Aldine House, 29 and 30 Bedfod Street Covent Garden, W.C. – 1909 )

 

The Duomo, Baptistery, and part of Leaning Tower – From the book “The Story of Pisa” by Janet Ross and Nelly Erichsen – Illustrade by Nelly Erichsen – London : J.M. Dent & Co, Aldine House, 29 and 30 Bedfod Street Covent Garden, W.C. – 1909

 

Pisa – Piazza dei Miracoli

 

Pisa – Piazza dei Miracoli

 

Pisa – Piazza dei Miracoli – Turisti in posa per foto con la Torre