Travels in Tuscany--Pisa Revisited (Part 2 of 2)

Nearby the Leaning Tower is the Campo Santo ("holy field"), a large cemetery established in the 12th century. Although visiting a cemetery is not a happy event, the Campo Santo is unique and worth seeing.

The legend is that in the 1100's a shipload of sacred soil from Golgotha near Jerusalem was brought to the site in Pisa and spread to form the base of the cemetery.  A century later, construction of a large building began on the site. The building is still standing despite a devastating fire in 1944 caused by an Allied bombing raid.  Many of the frescoes and other decorations were damaged or destroyed in the fire but some have been restored over the last 70 years. 

The Campo Santo is in the shape of a large rectangle with an open, grass-covered central courtyard.  Wide galleries with high ceilings line the sides and ends of the building.  A domed chapel is located at the east end of the building. 

The Galleries:  The covered areas of the cemetery are long galleries with fresco-covered walls on one side and arched openings toward the central courtyard.  On the floor are graves and along the inner and outer walls are sarcophagi. 

The Campo Santo is also home to sculptures and monuments honoring important Italians, such as Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, one of four fathers of unified Italy, and Leonardo Bonacci, or Fibonacci, an Italian mathematician from the 1200's.

Fibonacci

The Chapel:  Located in the Campo Santo is a large chapel filled with relics of many saints.  

The altar in the Campo Santo chapel

One of two large collections of relics in the Campo Santo chapel.  The collection included reputed relics of Saints Augustine, Laurence and Zenobius among many others.

Special Exhibition:  When we visited Pisa, the Campo Santo was hosting a special exhibition--In Peter’s Scars: Pisa Cathedral and the Vatican Basilica. The exhibition spans 2000 years of church history and focuses on the long connection of Pisa with Rome, including the resemblance of the Pisa Cathedral to Old St. Peter's Basilica in Rome and the belief that St. Peter visited Pisa during his lifetime.

Greg was especially interested in one of the artifacts in the exhibition.  Below is a realistic reproduction of a device used to move and raise an obelisk.  (Obelisks have long been typical features in piazzas, or squares, in Italy.)  Men or animals move the arms to turn a spool attached to a heavy rope.  The rope is part of a system of pulleys used to move or raise the obelisk, as illustrated below.

Greg wants to build his own contraption for erecting an obelisk.  It probably comes from playing with an Erector Set when he was young.  Let's hope he doesn't hurt himself.   

Thanks for revisiting Pisa with us.