Letters from the Lighthouse: Travel Edition: Pisa and Lucca

My second day in Florence involved an all day bus tour to Pisa and the neighboring town of Lucca. I loved being a little bit closer to the sea because there was a breeze that cooled things down a bit. And the bus ride made for a relaxing, non-walking time.

Everybody has heard of the Leaning Tower of Pisa - leaning because it was poorly planned to be built on land that was not the right soil for building - but there are a few other things that I found quite interesting. We actually didn't go into the town of Pisa. We just went to the Field of Miracles where the tower, the cathedral, the baptistery and the camposanto (cemetary) were built.

The Cathedral of Pisa and the Bell Tower, which we know as the leaning tower.

But, you couldn't go into the cathedral if you weren't baptized, so a baptistery also had to be built.

Notice the two different roof materials? That was done on purpose. The tiled side is tiled because it faces the sea and the tile handles the elements of the sea air better than the other materials.

Now, you've probably noticed by now that anything with a "duomo" (dome) has the most gorgeous ceiling. Check out this one:

Yep, no glitz, no glamour. That's because there used to be a big hole at the top and when it rained the rain water would come into the baptistery and fill up the font for the baptisms. I think our tour guide even told us that sometimes it would rain and people would come in and basically just walk through the rain and call it good. Oh well, good things don't last forever! So the picture below is the baptismal font that is now in place.

The interior of this baptistery is acoustically perfect. I hummed and you could hear it echo all around.
The baptistery was built in 1152 and is also leaning approximately 0.6 degrees toward the cathedral.

The cathedral is quite beautiful. The first stone was laid in 1093 and had one of the most unique and beautiful pulpits I have ever seen.

Front of the cathedral faces the back of the baptistery making it easy to get baptized and go right to the church,

Beautiful doors

Unfortunately, this is not what we were supposed to see. This is a very large banner of what is underneath
of it but is in the process of being restored. Apparently it is a beautiful mosaic and I'm sad it was all covered up.

You can see the bottom of the mosaic that is under restoration. I can only imagine.

Giovanni Pisano's pulpit (1302-11), widely regarded as a great masterpiece. It was not always so popular, however. Those who undertook the renovations after the 1595 fire thought the old Gothic pulpit was an eyesore, so they dismantled it and stored it in a crate. It was not rediscovered until 1926; it was reassembled and once again occupies its original place on the north side of the nave.

These pictures don't show how truly beautiful this piece of art is.

Near the pulpit is a low-hanging bronze lamp that, according to a popular story, Galileo was watching sway gently during Mass when the law of the pendulum occurred to him. Sadly, the lamp was actually cast in 1586, a few years after Galileo's discovery, but another lamp almost certainly hung here before this one.

A beautiful gold painted wooden ceiling

The tomb of Saint Rainerius - patron saint of Pisa and of travelers

Okay, okay, here's the Leaning Tower of Pisa!

Doesn't it look short and squatty? It did to me when I first saw it. It almost looked like a fake to me!
This is the view from the front - the Cathedral side.

This is my favorite view, from the back. See how there was an effort to try and get it back
on the "straight" path? Look at the top - where the bells are actually housed.

Speaking of bells, there are seven bells - the seven tones of a scale - do re mi fa sol la ti! I did not know that!

Now, on to my favorite part of the Field of Miracles - the Camposanto. The Camposanto contained a huge collection of Roman sarcophagi, but there are only 84 left together with a collection of Roman and Etruscan sculptures and urns. Anything that old interests me.The walls were once covered in frescoes; the first were applied in 1360, the last about three centuries later. On 27 July 1944, a bomb fragment from an Allied raid started a fire. Due to all the water tanks being controlled, the fire could not be put out in time, and it burnt the wooden rafters and melted the lead of the roof. The destruction of the roof severely damaged everything inside the cemetery, destroying most of the sculptures and sarcophagi and compromising all the frescoes. After World War II the restoration of the frescoes began. The roof was restored as closely as possible to its pre-war appearance and the frescoes were separated from the walls to be restored and displayed elsewhere. Once the frescoes had been removed, the preliminary drawings, calle sinopie were also removed. These under-drawings were separated using the same technique used on the frescoes and now they are in the Museum of the Sinopie, which is opposite the Camposanto but I did not have time to go to that museum. The restored frescoes that still exist are gradually being transferred to their original locations in the cemetery, to restore the Campo Santo's pre-war appearance.

I was lucky enough to see one of the restore frescoes being carefully pulled up into it's position on the wall. It was an exciting moment for all, and there was a lot of applause.

How cool is that?!

Here are some of my favorite pictures inside the Camposanto. It's hard just to choose a few!

A sarcophagus in the wall.

An entire wall of frescoes - 10 panels.

I had no idea what "fresco" meant until this trip. I had heard the word and knew if was kind of like a "faded" painting. Fresco is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly-laid, or wet-lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the painting becomes an integral part of the wall. In other words, it's more than just a painted wall. The wall is the painting. I imagine that makes restoration incredibly difficult.

Another one of those tombs-in-the-ground. Thank goodness this one was roped off. It's just weird to walk on them.

Antiquities, frescoes, and original wall

At first I had no idea what these were, but I learned while visiting the Medici Chapel.
Inside these ornately, gold-decorated "containers" are relics of saints, or so they say.

I loved this fresco because, and you can't see it very well, on the dark ring towards the center are all the zodiac signs.

So cool - sarcophagi and frescoes, and original wall.

Needless to say, I spent way more time in the Camposanto than any other place in Pisa. And no, I did not climb all 300 steps up the Leaning Tower. Not my thing. :o)

We hopped back on the bus after our Pisa visit and drove another 30 minutes to the lovely little town of Lucca. Lucca became a Roman colony in 180 BC. It's historical city center preserves the Roman style street plan, and the Piazza San Michele occupies the site of the ancient forum. Traces of the amphitheatre can still be seen in the Piazza dell'Anfiteatro. The walls encircling the old town remain intact, even as the city expanded and modernized, unusual for cities in the region. Once the walls lost their military importance, they became a pedestrian promenade.

Lucca's city walls all intact around the historical center.

A beautiful villa

Glass mosaics on the Basilica of San Frediano. This picture does not do it justice.

A whole bunch of curved walls with original parts of the original amphitheatre. The white part is original, believe it or not.

And here's what modernity has done to the inside of the ancient amphitheatre. It's a beautiful piazza and lots and lots of apartments, shops and restaurants.

San Michele Church built around 1100 AD

If you can see, each pillar on the bottom two rows is different. It was discovered later that the artists who were designing the pillars were copying patterns from the silk shop from across the piazza. Silk was a huge industry in Lucca. There is one remaining silk shop in Lucca today.

A picturesque piazza. I had lunch in a little cafe across from here.

I learned that Giacomo Puccini, famous composer of opera "The Barber of Seville" was born in Lucca. I found his house on a map and decided to go for a little walk before our tour was over. Lucca is not very big so I didn't have any trouble finding it.