Janet Ross e Nelly Erichsen – Pisa, The Campo Santo

  “ Its called the Campo Santo because therein is conserved the Holy Earth brought from Hierusalem in fifty Gallies of this Republic. These Gallies were sent by … Pisa to succour the Emperor Ænobarbe …. and they returned home again laden with the earth of the Holy Land, of which they made this Campo…

Janet Ross e Nelly Erichsen – Pisa, The Duomo, the Baptistery and the Leaning Tower – 4

  The Leaning Tower is probably the best known of the ” four fabrics.” Famous in the most distant lands, its image in alabaster is found in every town, its photographs are legion. Not because of any inherent beauty or architectural merit, but simply because it leans out of the perpendicular. To many eyes a…

Janet Ross e Nelly Erichsen – Pisa, The Duomo, the Baptistery and the Leaning Tower – 3

The Duomo is a basilica of vast proportions. It is, on the whole, the most perfect specimen of PisanRomanesque. Indeed, it is the prototype of that style ; not because it was the first church to include local deviations from the Tuscan- Romanesque, which were already common in Lucca, in Pisa, and in the hill-towns…

Janet Ross e Nelly Erichsen – Pisa, The Duomo, the Baptistery and the Leaning Tower – 2

  After the first shock of delight produced by this union of sunlight and architecture we begin to analyse the source of our pleasure, and we find something lacking in this Pisan development of the Tuscan- Romanesque. It has neither the aspiration of the gothic style, nor the perfect proportion and balance of Renaissance work….

Janet Ross e Nelly Erichsen – Pisa, The Duomo, the Baptistery and the Leaning Tower – 1

” There is a sacred place within her walls Sacred and silent, save when they that die Come there to rest, and they that live, to pray, For then are voices heard, crying to God, Where yet remain, apart from all things else, Four, such as nowhere on the earth are seen Assembled.” Italy. S….

Janet Ross e Nelly Erichsen – Pisa, The Appearance of the City … – 6

  Few traces of the Roman city now exist. On the site of its temples rose churches, whose columns, and much of the material of which they were built, were filched from the earlier structures. Architraves were made from fragments of temples, while carved stones and inscriptions are built into so many walls that we…

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

  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…

Janet Ross e Nelly Erichsen – Pisa, The Appearance of the City … – 4

  Either Via Solferino or the winding course of Via S. Maria, in which is the Trovatelli or Foundling Hospital, lead to the famous area where the four great architectural treasures of Pisa are enshrined, the Duomo, the Campo Santo, the Baptistery and the Leaning Tower, all dazzling white in the sunshine, and bewildering to…

Janet Ross e Nelly Erichsen – Pisa, The Appearance of the City … – 3

At the end of Via S. Frediano is a wonderfully picturesque square, the Piazza de’ Cavalieri. Here the buildings follow the irregular curve of the ancient forum or amphitheatre, upon whose ruins rose the noble palaces of the Commune, the Palazzo degl’Anziani, the Palazzo Vecchio, and the infamous prison-tower of the Gualandi. These have all…

Janet Ross e Nelly Erichsen – Pisa, The Appearance of the City … – 2

  The Lung’ Arno, finest of Pisan streets, though lacking the picturesque buildings on the Lung’ Arno of Florence surpasses it in beauty of line. The prospect is closed to the east by hills, one of them crowned with the ruins of La Verruca, the strongest fortress of the Republic ; to the west by…

Janet Ross e Nelly Erichsen – Pisa, The Appearance of the City ; Walls, Towers, Bridges, and Embankments – 1

  “Pisa is a very great city with about 10,000 turreted houses for battle at time of strife. . . . The city is not surrounded by a wall.”  The Itinerary of Benjamin da Tudela, circa 1170. “… E guardate da … gran Torri ch’n tutto’l mondo non si trovan tali.”  Sixteenth century MS.  ”…

Janet Ross e Nelly Erichsen, A First Impression of Lucca – 2

Behind the Duomo, nestling against the wall of the archbishop’s palace, lies the exquisite little Gothic church of S. Maria delle Rose. The trailing sprays of roses that are carved all over its singular exterior recall the fairy-tale mood, and look as if they had escaped from the bower of the Sleeping Beauty. SS. Giovanni…

Janet Ross e Nelly Erichsen, A First Impression of Lucca – 1

“… the green forest-walk on the wall— With the Apennine blue through the trees ; . . . the palaces, churches and all The great pictures that burn out of these.” B. Browning, The Sword of Castruccio Castracane ITALY is pre-eminently a land of cities. Hardly one among them, from the Apennines to the Ionian…