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Siena        Pisa
 

As I upload my eighth city of churches comparisons are unavoidable.
Pisa is essentially a one-church town. It's tourist trade revolves around the leaning tower and the surrounding Duomo complex, but every other church is left to crumble it seems. Most don't deserve this treatment - Pisa still gives very good Romanesque. As a city whose glory days are long passed Pisa could have become another well-preserved fossil, like Bruges or Ravenna. But it didn't.

As with most other Italian cities there's an unmissable and under-visited gallery where all the medieval art went, in Pisa it's the National Museum of San Matteo.
 

Duomo - Santa Maria Assunta
& Battistero di San Giovanni

Madonna dei Galletti

San Benedetto
San Bernardo
San Domenico
San Francesco
San Frediano
San Giorgio ai Tedeschi
San Giovanni dei Fieri

San Giuseppe
San Marco in Calcesana
San Martino
San Matteo
San Michele degli Scalzi
San Michele in Borgo
San Nicola
San Paolo a Ripa d'Arno & Cappella di Sant'Agata
San Paolo all'Orto
 

San Pietro in Vinculis
San Ranierino
San Rocco
San Silvestro
San Sisto
San Tommaso delle Convertite
San Torpé
San Zeno

Sant'Andrea Forisportam
Sant'Anna
Sant'Antonio Abate
Sant'Antonio in Qualconia
Sant'Apollonia

Santa Caterina d'Alessandria
Santa Cecilia
Santa Chiara
Santa Cristina
Santa Croce in Fossabanda
Santa Eufrasia
Santa Maria del Carmine
Santa Maria della Spina
Santa Maria Maddalena
Santa Marta

Santi Vito e Ranieri
Santo Sepolcro
Santo Stefano dei Cavalieri
 

 

Duomo
Santa Maria Assunta
Piazza dei Miracoli

History
Riding on the invasion coat-tails of the Normans as they wrested Sicily from the Saracens, Pisa brought back much booty from their sack of Palermo and put it towards the building of a Duomo in keeping with their new stature.
These were to be Pisa's glory days, and the Piazza del Duomo became the heart of the city's religious and communal life.
Work began on the Duomo in 1063 and finished in 1092. The architect was Buscheto di Giovanni Guidice, with a design inspired by antiquity,  his own San Paolo a Ripa d'Arno.

Exterior
Rich, with various marbles and mosaic and objects (spolia) looted in 1061. The main entrance has always been the side door, of Saint Rainerius, as this faces the direction from which the city would arrive. This door, the only one not destroyed in the 1595 fire, was cast c.1180 by Bonanno Pisano and is decorated with 24 bronze relief sculptures of scenes from the New Testament. A copy is in place now, the original being in the Opera museum.

Interior
The nave is ten bays long, Romanesque, with altars at 1, 4, 7, and 10, behind a pair of aisles each side. Above are galleries, called matronei, as they were for women, and a clerestory level with slim windows. There's a wooden 17th-century coffered ceiling, the work of Domenico and Bartolomeo Atticciati. It is painted and gilded and features the Medici coat of arms.
The side altars have mostly 16th and 17th century paintings. These include Our Lady of Graces with Saints, by Andrea del Sarto, and the Virgin Enthroned with Saints in the right transept by Perin del Vaga, both finished by Giovanni Antonio Sogliani. The Disputa del Sacramento by Francesco Vanni, and the Crucifixion with Saints by Genoan Giovanni Battista Paggi. Locally venerated is the 13th-century Virgin and Child, attributed to Berlinghiero Berlinghieri of Volterra.
Although a Latin cross in plan it was originally a Greek cross. The elliptical dome over the crossing came even later. The dome painting depicts the Virgin in Glory with Saints by Pisan artists Orazio and Girolamo Riminaldi from the early 17th century and was painted using encaustic, not a common choice of medium. Restoration took place from 2015 to 2018.
On the left before the crossing is Giovanni Pisano's famous and well-populated pulpit from 1302-1310. It was dismantled 1599-1601, following the 1595 fire, and only returned in 1926, with bits missing, including the staircase. There's a monochrome plaster cast of it, including the staircase, made in 1865, in the cast court of the Victoria and Albert museum in London.
The transept arms are very long, the left one all scaffoldinged up (June 2023).  The granite Corinthian columns between the nave and the apse come from the mosque of Palermo, and are more spolia from 1063
There's a considerable area of mid-12th century Cosmati pavement in front of high altar. The bronze crucifix and the angel candleholders on the ends of the marble transenna were made by Giambologna. The dome was frescoed with The Assumption in 1627-30 by Orazio Riminaldi. It was restored in 2018, as were the Four Evangelists in the pendentives by Michelangelo Cinganelli.
There is no access to the east end, which is all red-roped off.  So you can't see the following.
The 27 paintings behind the high altar in three rows which depict Stories from the Old Testament and The Life of Christ and were made in the 16th and 17th centuries, mostly by Tuscan artists, including Andrea del Sarto (three works: Saint Agnes, Saints Catherine and Margaret, and Saints Peter and John the Baptist) il Sodoma, and Domenico Beccafumi (Stories of Moses and the Evangelists).
The mosaic in the apse is of Christ Enthroned with the Virgin and Saint John.  The face of Saint John was painted by Cimabue in 1302. It is his last work and the only one for which there is documentation. The mosaic was mostly made by Francesco da Pisa, and completed by Vincino da Pistoia, with the Virgin on the left side in 1320. Also medieval is the early 14th century fresco of the Virgin and Child in the triumphal arch by Pisan artist the Maestro di San Torpè.
Other fresco fragments include Saint Jerome on one of the four central pillars, as well as Saint John the Baptist, Saints Cosmas and Damian, and a Crucifixion on one of the pillars near the entrance, partially hidden by the entrance.
The right transept (see photo right) is devoted to the relics of Saint Rainerius, the 12th-century patron saint of Pisa, in a glass-sided coffin. This area is also largely roped off. Also in the right transept, on the east wall and also behind ropes, is the marble tomb of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII of Luxembourg (visible to the left in the photo to the right), who died at Buonconvento whilst laying siege to Florence. It was sculpted by Tino da Camaino between 1313-1315 and has been much dismantled and remade. It was originally sited in the apse to signal the city's Ghibelline sympathies. Such political reasons made for much movement within the church, and it was eventually broken up, with some parts remaining in the church, some on the façade, some in the Camposanto, and some in the Duomo's Opera museum. A plaster cast of it, made in 1865, is in the cast court of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (see below). The right transept also contains unfinished fresco decoration, including three posing putti, by Perin del Vaga from c.1534.



Lost art in San Matteo
Two panels from a predella, showing two scenes from the Life of Saint Cecelia by Bernardo Daddi from 1330-35. A panel from a polyptych by Spinello Aretino from the late 14th century showing Saints John the Baptist, James and Anthony Abbot and a Coronation of the Virgin with Angel Musicians panel.

Campanile

History
Building work began in 1152 and the architect was Deotisalvi already responsible for Santo Sepulcro. It's said to be the biggest baptistery in Italy, based (even more than usual) on the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The diameter of the Baptistery is exactly the same as the width of the Duomo's facade and the length of the Duomo is the same as the distance between the doors of the Baptistery and Duomo. The figures of The Virgin Between Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist by Giovanni Pisano, from c.1330, once in the outside lunette over the baptistery door, are now in the Opera Museum.

Interior
An impressively plain and stripey space inside, especially when viewed from the gallery, but the dome is disappointingly undecorated. The spiral staircase used to reach the gallery are also credited to Deotisalvi.

The pulpit of 1260 is the work of Nicola Pisano, who was not from Pisa, classical-inspired, and by the Roman Phaedra sarcophagus repurposed in the Duomo for Christian burial, and later moved into the Camposanto. The Pisano pulpit was commissioned by Archbishop Federico Visconti, probably to celebrate the lifting of Papal Interdict, imposed in in 1241 in punishment for the abduction of a delegation of cardinals and bishops on their way to Rome. The sculptured panels, depicting the Life of Christ, feature the first three nail crucifixion in Italy, although it had become common in northern Europe.

Lorenzo de Medici had the heads Pisano had carved in the Last Judgement cut off to be put in his collection of roman antiquities. The replacements have gone too. Siena wanted one (1265-8) and its contract was signed here in front of this one. A monochrome cast of it, from 1864, is in the cast court of the Victoria and Albert museum in London.

History
Begun in 1278, on a vegetable plot, donated by Archbishop Federico Visconti, who commissioned the work, over the ruins of the old baptistery of the church of Santa Reparata, the church which once stood where the Duomo now stands, this is a cloister cemetery like no other. The last element of the Piazza del Duomo to be built, the architect was Giovanni di Simone, who had also built the Spedale Nuove (which the Sinopia Museum now occupies) and the campanile of San Francesco. The blind arcading outside gives way, through the door on the south side, to a garth surrounded by a cloister pierced by unglazed gothic windows. The earth in the garth was, legend has it, from Calvary, brought back from Jerusalem after the crusades in 1200, and said to miraculously consume the flesh of corpses in just a few hours.

The extravagantly gothic tabernacle over the main entrance (currently -  June 2023 - undergoing restoration) contains a Virgin and Child Between Saints, Angels and a Kneeling Devotee by Lupo di Francesco, a pupil of Giovanni Pisano. The marble Crucifix by Nino Pisano for the lunette of the western door is now in San Michele in Borgo.

The bombing
On 27th July 1944 allied bombing created a fire in the Camposanto when a stray shell hit the roof. It spread quickly in the dry roof timbers. There was no water as the mains had been cut, the few Italian volunteers on the spot could do little, and the Germans could, or would, do nothing to help. Within four hours the whole cloister roof had burned. Its destruction dripped hot lead onto the floor and tomb sculptures, cracking the latter, and beams crashed into the frescoed walls.

 

Damage varied from the irreparable (The Assumption by Stefano da Firenze) to the serious damage that the works below has seen repaired with the varying degrees of expertise and success over the decades. Reports at the time said that beside the more serious damage the colours had changed, but it as admitted that this was hard to evaluate as the lack of the roof resulted in the unprecedented illumination of the frescoes under an open sky. Further damage resulted from German shelling of northern Pisa on September 23rd and 24th and October 4th.

The circuit
Frescoes from the 14th and 15th centuries (The ones on the side you enter are much the less faded.)
Assuming you enter through the entrance up the path to the right of the entrance to the Baptistery, whilst the central door is undergoing work..
When entering I suggest you go around clockwise. The short wall after the entrance cabin has Stories of Job, by Taddeo Gaddi (end of 14th century) mostly now in shades of sand and terracotta. Turning into the short west end you'll find monuments, it's the same the other end - the long corridors have floor tombs and Roman sarcophaguses. This end has my fave tomb (see below) by Giovanni Duprè, from 1863-7, for astronomer and physicist Ottaviano Fabrizio Mossotti. The figure is Urania, the Muse of astronomy. The 16th and 17th century frescoes here provide a pleasant blotchy background to the tombs.

The huge disc of the Creation of the World begins the Old Testament cycle in the north corridor which Piero di Puccio from Orvieto, began in 1388, as shown much more vividly than they are now in the painting (right) . He only completed The Creation, The Story of Adam and and some early scenes from the Life of Noah before, two years later, work ceased, possibly because of the city's dire financial state.

An artist was later sought by a committee of Pisans to complete the Old Testament cycle abandoned 70 years before, following the conquest of Pisa by Florence. The first choice was Andrea Mantagna, who declined the offer, the second was an artist from Lucca whose trial piece was rejected by the committee. Third choice Benozzo Gozzoli was asked to paint a trial fresco of The Drunkenness of Noah, and got the job, on 17th January 1469. His work, 26 murals, completed in in 1485, stretches the remaining length of the north corridor. They are very pale and much damaged, having suffered the most from the 1945 bombing. A factor in the seriousness of the damage was the unusual mixing of plaster of Paris with the pigments, Superintendent P. Sanpaolesi reported at the time, this causing the plaster to blister and crack. The detail (right) is from The Building of the Tower of Babel.

There are three chapels, two along this wall. The first, and oldest,  is now the entrance to the restoration lab. It's called the Ammannati (1360) getting its name from the tomb of Ligo Ammannati, a teacher in the University of Pisa,. Then there's the Aulla, which has an altar depicting The Assumption with Saints and Prophets, made by Giovanni della Robbia in 1518. He was the grandnephew of Luca and his work is usually in deeper relief and with more colours than his granduncle's. Hanging above is the original incense lamp used by Galileo Galilei to calculate pendular movements.

The third, at the east end, is the Dal Pozzo, commissioned by Carlo Antonio Dal Pozzo, archbishop of Pisa, in 1594. The relics belonging to the cathedral were translated here in 2009. They include relics of eleven of the twelve Apostles, two fragments of the True Cross, a thorn from the Crown of Thorns and a small piece of the Virgin Mary's dress. There are helpful printed panels showing where to find each relic.

Continuing clockwise the east short end has more tombs, the entrance to the Dal Pozzo reliquary chapel and frescoes of The Passion by Francesco Traini  and Buffalmacco from 1336/41 in the south-west corner.

Then the long south wall back along to the entrance, with the vivider and more action-packed frescoes, recently restored and returned to their original postion. These depict The Triumph of Death, The Last Judgement (see below right), Hell, The Triumph of Death, and The Thebaid (stories of the Desert Fathers), are usually attributed to Buffalmacco, and were painted in the years after the Black Death.

This wall ends, after the central wooden door, with Andrea di Bonaiuti and Antonio Veneziano's (and Spinello Aretino) Story of San Ranieri and Stories of Saints Ephysius and Potitus by Spinello Aretino (between 1377 and 1391) all pretty pale and damaged.

Some unusually big sinopie from the Camposanto, revealed by the 1945 bombing and the post-war work, are now on display in the Sinopie Museum, housed in the Spedale Nuove, founded in 1257. The museum opened in 1979.
 

History
A church built from 1401, along with a Cistercian convent, on the site of the Osnello hospital, named after its founder, which was first mentioned in 1189 and was a shelter for pilgrims and wayfarers.

In 1444 the nuns rebuilt the complex, which later underwent more renovation. In 1616 the building and its floor were raised and in the mid-18th-century it attained its current form. The Cistercian nuns remained until the early 19th-century when, upon suppression, they moved to San Silvestro.

The church is now a scruffy arts and community centre (see right) called the Cantiere San Bernardo, but is crumbling due to local government neglect.

Interior
Baroque, with gilt plasterwork by Antonio Ferri. Frescoes on the ceiling of Stories from the Life of Saint Bernard by Tommaso Tommasi. Two mid-18th-century frescos on the walls at the east end by G. Battista Tempesti in stucco frames.
 

History
A late-14th-century church was replaced by the current 17th century baroque one, during which process the 15th-century frescoes inside were destroyed. The current facade was built in 1850. In 1862 the church housed the relics of Saint Stephen before their final transfer to Santo Stefano dei Cavalieri 
The church and former Vallombrosan convent are/were a gym and a study centre of the Casa di Risparmio di Pisa.

Lost art
A 13th century Processional Cross from the Vallombrosan monastery here is in the San Matteo gallery.

Campanile
19th- century and severely damaged during WWII.
 

Lost art in the San Matteo gallery
A 1404 Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine panel and a 1405 polyptych centred on a Virgin and Child Enthroned, both by Martino di Bartolomeo and Giovanni di Pietro da Napoli. A processional banner by Fra Angelico from 1440-45. A Vision of Saint Bridget panel by Turino Vanni from the late 14th/early 15th century. A panel showing Christ Blessing, Enthroned with the Virgin and Mary Magdalene by Ambrogio da Asti, a pupil of Ghirlandaio from Asti,  from 1514. A central panel depicting Saint Catherine of Alexandria by the anonymous Flemish Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy from 1485-93, and two flanking panels showing the Marriage of Saint Catherine and Saint Catherine and the Doctors by an anonymous Pisan artist of the early 16th century (see above right). A crowded Crucifixion with the Ten Thousand Martyrs panel by Benozzo Gozzoli from the end of the 15th century and fresco panels by him, depicting a Crucifixion and Saint Dominic Requesting Silence from the refectory here.

Bibliography
Dominican Women and Renaissance Art: The Convent of San Domenico of Pisa by Ann Roberts.
 

In the 15th century the complex was turned into a barracks and later became the Collegio della Sapienza, founded by Cosimo I de’ Medici in 1543. It housed the Inquisition in 1575 and in 1787 passed to Augustinians, until the Napoleonic suppressions. The convent then became a hospital and later a military warehouse. In 1901 was it returned to the Franciscans and reopened for worship.
During WWII a shell damaged the roof and further damage was done by the Consorzio Agrario when using the church as a granary. The church was declared a national monument in 1893 but has been closed since 2016. A sad shame for the second largest church in Pisa, only the Duomo being bigger.

Interior
The first left chapel, of the Martyrs, has frescoes from the workshop of Agnolo Gaddi from the end of the 14th century. And a 1602 altarpiece of The Nativity by Ludovico Cardi, nicknamed il Cigoli, a friend and adviser of Galileo Galilei, The second chapel, of the Conception, is where  the Maestà by Cimabue of c.1280 once sat. The third chapel, of Agostini della Seta, has frescoes by Francesco Neri da Volterra. Here the altarpiece of San Francis by Giunta Pisano from 1255 was kept.
In the presbytery are a cycle of frescoes attributed to Jacopo di Mino del Pellicciano from 1342 (vault), paintings by Galileo Chini and Saint Peter frescoes attributed to Taddeo Gaddi.
The chapel of SS. Sacramento housed the famous Giotto San Francesco Receiving the Stigmata, looted by Napoleon in 1811 and are still in the Louvre. There's a copy here now.

Then the chapel of the Gherardesca, second on the right, houses the tomb of Count Ugolino della Gherardesca, immortalized by Dante in the Divine Comedy. There's a triptych with Saint Anthony by Ventura Salimbeni and Giovanni Stefano Marucelli ( Jesus);  This chapel was transformed in the Fascist era into the Chapel of the Fallen and decorated in 1928 with their symbols and fasces.
At the end, the chapel of the Fantini with the triptych of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Francesco Manetti (1908).

There are paintings by Jacopo da Empoli, Domenico Passignano and Santi di Tito. In the transept are frescoes by Taddeo Gaddi (1342-1345), Galileo Chini (20th century) and a marble altarpiece by Tommaso Pisano (late 14th century) of which there's a cast in the V&A cast court (see right).

The sacristy (accessible through the left transept) begins with a corridor with detached frescoes attributed to Giovanni da Milano. Inside are sinopie coming from the chapter house frescoes by Niccolò di Pietro Gerini of the life of Christ (1392). The Sardi-Campiglia chapel has frescoes by Taddeo di Bartolo (1397) of Stories from the Life of Virgin. The vaults with Evangelists and Doctors of the Church are attributed to Barnaba of Modena.

The windows
Near the left transept, in front of the apse chapels, at the top there is a large mullioned window of 1929, painted by Francesco Mossmeyer in the style of the originals, which features the face of Benito Mussolini. Both wings of the transept are decorated with five stained glass windows, painted on the original model by Francesco Mossmeyer in 1926, with stories from the life of of San Francis. There are seven apses, repainted between 1903 and 1930 by the atelier of Ulisse de Matteis and by Mossmeyer, but that of the presbytery is from 1341.

Lost art in the Louvre

The Giotto Stigmata of St Francis (1295/1300) used to be found in one of the chapels in the left transept here. It and Cimabue's Maestà of c.1280 were both looted by Denon for Napoleon in 1811 and are still in the Louvre. They had both briefly hung in the Camposanto post-suppression.

Lost art in San Matteo
A very damaged and faded 14th century fresco fragment in a box depicting the Virgin and Child, possibly by Taddeo Gaddi
A large painted and gilded dossal showing Saint Francis and Six of his Miracles by Giunta Pisano from 1255.
A 13th-century painted and gilded Crucifix formerly in the sacristy here and attributed to Deodato Orlandi .
An early-14th-century smoky Virgin and Child (Madonna del Latte) panel by Barnaba da Modena (see right).
A 14th/15th-century wooden Annunciation group, with traces of polychrome. by the Master of Montefoscoli.
Twenty-seven 14th century liturgical books with musical notation, commissioned for this church, remained here until 1808. Napoleon moved them to San Nicola, where they were kept until 1893 when they returned to San Francesco until moving to the Museum of San Matteo in 1949
 

Opening times
Closed since 2016, with the cloister now occasionally used for concerts and services

d'Arcais p119

The façade
Late 11th/early 12th century, restored in 1964 to its original medieval appearance. The lintel over the central door is reused ancient Roman.

Interior
Damaged by fire in 1675, has kept its original form, with a nave and two aisles. A rough Romanesque feel, with marble columns, round arches and decorated 11th-century capitals with animals and humans. The green plaster ceiling is a bit out of keeping. A long church eight bays with three deep dark domed chapels in first five bays and two tall marble tombs incorporating confessionals from the 17th century. Two more carved wooden confessionals at the east end. There's a decorated-domed chapel at the end of each aisle flanking a rectangular domed and low-key-baroque apse with an organ loft over the stalls. The frescoes of the dome were completed by Rutilio Manetti. The chapel to the right of the presbytery has the columns of its altar frame being broken and pushed aside by caryatids (see right). The Baroque altars have 17th-century paintings by Ventura Salimbeni (Annunciation and Nativity) and Aurelio Lomi (Adoration of the Magi 1604). There are also frescoes by Domenico Passignano. The first chapel on the left has the  highlight nice old 12th century Crucifix with Scenes from the Passion.

Lost art
A Miracle of Saint Francis panel by Aurelio Lomi from 1611/12 is in San Matteo.

Campanile
Chunky, said to be 13th century


A photo from 1924
 

History
Built from 1316 in memory of the German soldiers who died at the battle of Montecatini. Then called San Giorgio degli Innocenti as it was annexed in 1414 to the Trovatelli hospital, becoming its chapel, but from 1784 it was annexed to the hospital of Santa Chiara who, in 1989, passed the church to the Institution of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre. .

Interior
Aisleless, the interior was renovated from 1722. There's a 14th-century wooden crucifix by a German artist and gilded stucco and paintings of the 18th century. On the inner façade there's a  lunette above the entrance - a fresco of the Holy Family painted in medieval style by Curzio Rossi in 1932. There's an early 19th century wooden coffered ceiling. On the walls are 19th-century copies of the ovals painted around 1773 by Giovanni Stella and Giuseppe Soldaini, depicting Christ, the Virgin and Saints. The left wall's altar is polychrome marble from 1722 topped by a canvas of The Massacre of the Innocents by Domenico Ceuli. Two 18th-century paintings by Giovan Battista Fanucci and, to the left of the main altar, an Immaculate Conception by an unknown 18th-century artist.

Campanile
A small bell gable.
 

History
Known as San Giovannino in the 12th century it was renovated by the architect Cosimo Pugliani in 1614. Having belonged to the Order of St John of Jerusalem, who also owned the church of Santo Sepolcro. This church now belongs to the Seventh-day Adventists.

Lost art
A 13th-century painted and gilded Crucifix, attributed to Michele di Balduino, is now in the San Matteo gallery. As is a late 14th century Virgin and Child Enthroned with Angels panel by Barnaba da Modena.

San Giuseppe
Via San Giuseppe

Interior
Aisleless and baroque, mostly 18th and 19th century art. Small but tall, lit by large clerestory windows, gently baroque-decorated with a pair of curved side chapels and a shallow apse with a pair of high nun's gallery grills. The Flight into Egypt of 1729 by Ranieri del Pace is the high altarpiece. The vault of the apse was decorated in 1955 with the coats of arms of Pisa, the Compagnia del Crocione and the Misericordia. On the left is a fresco by the school of Giovanni Battista Tempesti, representing The Flagellaton of Christ. A chapel on the right, dedicated to the Precious Blood, has a ceiling fresco of the The Volto Santo and Flight of Angels of 1895 by Ranieri Cardelli. Near the entrance is the Perelli altar dedicated to the Holy Shepherdess with a wood and stucco statue of Christ Fallen Under The Cross, carved by Giuseppe Giacobbi in 1705 for the Certosa di Calci and transferred here in 1808.

Campanile
Erected in 1710, square, brick, with a gallery of pietra serena. It replaced one from 1614.
 

San Marco in Calcesana

Via Giuseppe Garibaldi

History
Located next to the gateway in the city walls of the road that lead to Calci, hence the name. Consecrated on 1 September 1142 by Archbishop Baldovino, the church was attached to a hospital. It housed monks/nuns of the order of Saint Matthew until 1387 when patronage passed to some Pisan families. Reconstruction began in 1508, involving the rebuilding of the façade and the erection of a campanile. Several suppressions were followed by deconsecration in 1819. Largely demolished inside, the walls remain. Later usage included as a warehouse and a garage, the church is pretty much a ruin now. In 2014 a plan was put forward by a Forza Italia councillor to turn it into a concert hall and cultural centre.

Lost art
During the rebuilding mentioned above, in 1518, a large glazed terracotta altarpiece of  The Assumption was commissioned from Giovanni della Robbia, the grandnephew of Luca, for the high altar here, with an elaborate glazed decorated frame and full-length figures. It is now in the Aulla chapel in the Camposanto.

History
The Church was first documented in 1066 as San Martino in Guazzolongo (the name of the quarter) and belonging to Augustinians. It was rebuilt in 1331, with funding from Bonifacio Novello della Gherardesca, as a convent for Clarissan nuns. The lower façade dates from the 14th century, with the upper section added 1610 during rebuilding. The façade has a copy of the lunette bas relief of Saint Martin and the Poor Man attributed to Andrea  Pisano, the original is inside the church.

Interior
Hall-shaped and aisleless with shallow transept arms and apse, renovated during the 1610 rebuilding, Has a  wooden painted crucifix by Pisan painter Enrico di Tedice from the mid 13th century. On the ceiling of the chapel of the Holy Sacrament are 14th-century frescoes of  The Redeemer and Saints by Giovanni di Nicola e Cecco di Pietro.  On the wall are stories of the virgin by Antonio Veneziano.
Also has 17th century paintings by Palma il Giovane, Orazio Riminaldi, Jacopo Ligozzi, il Passignano and the Melani brothers.

Lost art
An altarpiece by the anonymous Master of Saint Martin was painted for this church c.1250/60 and is now in the San Matteo gallery (see right). The Virgin and Child in the centre is flanked by columns of scenes from the story of Joachim and Anna, with Saint Martin Dividing His Cloak in a lobed space at the base of the Virgin's throne. There's also a lunette by him there of The Virgin and Child with Angels and Saint Martin doing the cloak thing again.
An altarpiece by Taddeo di Bartolo c.1396/7. Remaining are the central panel of the Virgin and Child, which is in Nancy, with two flanking panels with a pair of saints in each, Bartholomew and Andrew on one, Christopher and a bishop (Martin?) on the other, which are in the Pisa Archepiscopal Palace. It is assumed that the bishop saint is Martin because he is the dedicatee of this church, whilst Christopher and Andrew were the dedicatees of churches nearby then under the control of this one. Bartholomew is a less obvious local choice, although his head and hand are kept in the Duomo.
The polychrome ceramic font is now found in the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo.

San Matteo
Lungarno Mediceo

History
Part of a convent of Benedictine nuns in 1027, the church was rebuilt over a previous little Romanesque church and enlarged in the 12th and 13th centuries. Rebuilt at the behest of Cosimo III de'Medici from 1607 following a fire, with the current aisleless church replacing the previous one with two aisles, with a façade added in 1610. Following suppression in 1866 the convent became a prison.
Thefts in 1905 included a 16th century altarpiece attributed to Pierino del Vaga, with a predella by Raffaellino del Garbo which was later recovered.
Heavily damaged by bombing in WWII. The vaulting, with frescoesc by Boscoli was demolished and the retrochoir damaged. After the war the complex became first a museum and then the Department of History of the Arts of the University of Pisa. Restoration work between January 1945 and May 1946 resulted in the current National Museum of San Matteo, the former museum site in San Francesco having become unusable due to humidity and war damage. The church is now used by an orthodox congregation.

Interior
Baroque faux marble and gilt plaster. Two side altars, each flanked by two panel paintings. A squarish nave with real windows on right, trompe l'oeil windows on left. It is backed with a deep narthex with a nuns' gallery above, divided from the nave by a row of columns, with grisaille frescoes featuring full-length figures in considerable niches.
The vault is frescoed with The Glory of Matthew by brothers Giuseppe and Francesco Melani, from the 18th century, with much queasy trompe l'oeil architecture.
There are also Stories of the Life of Saint Matthew by Sebastiano Conca, Francesco Trevisani and Jacopo Zoboli, while the altar on the left wall has a Crucifix from the 13th century.

Lost art in the San Matteo gallery
A 13th century Byzantine/Pisan Crucifix from the convent here (see right). An early 14th-century Virgin and Child with Angels and Saints Francis and Chiara by the Maestro della Carita from the convent here. A Virgin and Child enthroned with Two Angels, Four Saints and the Donor altarpiece, an early work by Niccolò Pisano (Niccolò dell'Abbrugia) from 1493. A wooden Annunciate Angel with traces of polychrome by Andrea Pisano from c.1345 and another such figure (or a saint) by Tommaso Pisano from later in the 14th century.
 

Lost art
A late 14th century triptych by Taddeo di Bartolo centred on a Virgin and Child with angel Musicians is in San Matteo.

Campanile
Medieval but rebuilt in 1676.

San Michele degli Scalzi
Piazza San Michele degli Scalzi

San Nicola
Via Santa Maria

History
First documented, along with its attached Augustinian convent, in 1097 as depending from the Monastery of San Michele della Verruca. Tradition, says it was founded by Marquis Ugo di Tuscia at the end of the 10th century in an area where the Tuscia family owned property. Enlarged by Augustinians 1297-1313 possibly to designs by Giovanni Pisano for the east side. Rebuilding from 1572 with work on eight chapels and the ceiling and the Santi Sacramento chapel by Matteo Nigetti in 1614. During WWII the church suffered one hole in the roof and shrapnel pitting on the façade and walls.

The façade

The lower part is 11th century and typical Pisan Romanesque,  featuring 12th century intarsia.  The upper story brickwork is perhaps 16th century.

A covered passage to the right of the façade connects the church to the Palazzo delle Vedova, via the Torre de Cantone, which was used by the Medici women living in the palazzo to attend services without walking in the street.
 

Interior
Aisleless, with four deep chapels each side, the first pair under the rear organ gallery. Two lower and broader side chapels before the apse make a crossing effect. Enclosed chapels either side of the apse with a large sacristy off the left one, which has a modern baptismal font. Barrel vaulted square apse.
On the right the first chapel, otherwise bare, with a decorated ceiling, has a lovely small Virgin and Child by Francesco Traini (but not the polychrome wooden Madonna Annunciate by Francesco da Valdambrino mentioned.)

On the right wall of the second chapel the panel of Saint Charles Borromeo is by Giovanni Bilivert.
In the fourth chapel, a gold-ground panel from a polyptych (now behind glass) shows Saint Nicholas of Tolentino Saving Pisa from the Plague (c. 1400) with a view of Pisa, famous for being one of the oldest and most detailed.
The high altar (flanked by two statues by Felice Palma) was designed by Matteo Nigetti, who also decorated the 17th-century chapel on the right. In the chapel to the left of the high altar is a wooden Crucifix by Giovanni Pisano (c. 1300), and in the fourth chapel on the left side has a statue of the Virgin and Child by Nino Pisano, behind glass. The second chapel on the left contains an altarpiece (in poor condition) of the Annunciation by Giovanni Bilivert, behind a model of the church's environs in olden times.
 

Campanile
Said to date to 1170, the octagonal tower is said to be the work of Diotisalvi, also responsible for Pisa's other leaning tower. Its  cantilevered spiral staircase was admired and studied by Bramante.


 

History

Documents report the founding of the church around 925. By 1032 a church certainly existed, connected to a Benedictine monastery. By 1092 this had passed to Vallombrosan monks and it became a hospital in 1147.
The design of the church is attributed to the architect Bruschetto and was modified in the 11th/12th centuries, in a style similar to that of the Duomo, and was reconsecrated by Pope Eugene III in 1148.
In 1409 the complex was transferred to Cardinal Landolfo di Marramauro, and then in 1552 was given to the Florentine Grifoni family of San Miniato. After 1565 it passed to the Order of Saint Stephen. Upon suppression of the order in 1798 the church passed to parish use.
Major rebuilding in 1853, directed by Pietro Bellini, to restore the church to its Romanesque appearance which included the removal of the side altars. The complex was severely damaged during WWII when bombing led to the collapse of the nave roof and part of the south aisle. The remaining roof tiles were then stolen by locals. Restoration work following in 1949-1952, during which the convent buildings were demolished, including the two cloisters, one to the rear and one against the south wall, and the campanile, thereby restoring the small Cappella di Sant'Agata to its free-standing state.

Exterior
Bichrome marble banding with re-used Roman stonework. The façade was designed in the 12th century but only completed in the 14th, maybe by Giovanni Pisano.

Interior
Massively looming, with six slightly-pointy-arched bays, the last bay wider and with the granite columns replaced by stripey pillars with, on the left hand one,  full length frescoes of Saints Bartholomew and Francis by Buffalmacco. Plain walls and quite a nice lot of tall slim windows in walls and clerestory.
The left transept has a Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints panel by Turino Vanni from 1397 and some decorative fresco remains in a niche (see photo right).
At the back is a 2nd-century Roman sarcophagus that was repurposed as a medieval tomb for the remains of the Pisan jurist Burgundio (1194). Its  relief is supposed to have been used as a model by both Nicola Pisano and Arnolfo di Cambio, his pupil.


Lost art in San Matteo
A Lippo Memmi polyptych, now dismembered, dated 1325-9. A panel showing Saint Andrew on a Faldstool. Saint Ursula Saves Pisa from the Plague, a large 14th century panel painting, is controversially claimed to have come from this church.

Cappella di Sant'Agata
In the scrubby garden behind the church is the small octagonal Romanesque Cappella di Sant'Agata, built c.1063 to celebrate the conquest of the city of Palermo in that year and dedicated to Saint Agatha, who had been martyred in Sicily. The first documented mention of the chapel dates to 1132 however. The octagonal plan and the dating of construction to the 12th century suggests Diotisalvi as its architect evidently.
Until WWII the chapel was enclosed by a cloister and so invisible from outside. During bombing in 1943, surrounding buildings were destroyed and it was decided not to rebuild and so to leave the chapel in solitary splendour in a park.
The interior contains fragments of 12th-century wall decoration.
 

History
First mentioned in 1086 and called San Paolo in Burgo, but by 1120 it had its current dedication. In 1472 it passed to the Augustinian nuns of Sant'Agostino in via Romea, who undertook restoration work in 1481, shortening the church, demolishing the apse and rebuilding the roof vaults. In the 18th century the interior was decorated with late baroque stucco.
The monastery became a girls' college in 1785, with the church losing its parish status in 1789, with suppression following in 1808.
Restoration work in 1819, but the church was deconsecrated in 1950. It passed to the municipality of Pisa and has been subject to further restoration. Since 2005 it has been the seat of the Gipsoteca di Arte Antica of the University of Pisa".
The late-12th century Pisan Romanesque decoration of the façade has been attributed to Biduino.

Lost art
The Casassi altarpiece, centred on a Virgin and Child with Saints, by Taddeo di Bartolo from 1395 (see below) was looted by Napoleon and Denon and never returned, being today in the Museum of Grenoble. Of the three gable panels, The Blessing Redeemer is in Altenburg, Saint John the Baptist is in Asciano and Saint Peter is in a private collection. A winningly bright Crucifixion, thought to be the centre of a five-scene predella, is in the Avignon Musée du Petit Palais. The altarpiece was painted to commemorate Gherardo Casassi, his will having stipulated he be buried in front of the high altar here. His sons, named as custodians of his bequest, where represented on the altarpiece by their name saints - Andrew and Nicholas in the main tier and young Ludovico in a medallion.



The Cross of San Paolo all'Orto, a painted Crucifix by an unknown Pisan artist, from c.1100-1130 is now in the Museum of San Matteo. It is the oldest known work on wood from the Pisan school.
 

San Pietro in Vinculis
Via Cavour

Interior
A nave and two aisles, columns with Romanesque capitals (possible from a mysterious previous building) and a cosmatesque pavement of the 12th century. Frescoes from the 11th and 12th centuries on the inner façade (The Annunciation) and in a niche near the main altar (Saint Peter and the Angel). A Crucifix the 13th century, attributed to Michele di Baldovino ends the nave. The crypt is the only one in Pisa and is formed of four aisles with columns with bare capitals (late Roman) and has frescoes by Francesco Neri from Volterra (1367)

Campanile
Adapted from a 12th-century private tower.

Lost pandects
The church had housed a famous manuscript of the Corpus Juris Civilis (Civil Law Code) of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I from 533, which came here after the sack of Amalfi in 1136 and was kept in the crypt. When Pisa fell in 1406  the Florentines took the document, which is now in the Laurentian library.
 

History
A church was already here in 1118, when it was occupied by Benedictine monks from Monte Cassino, who were here until 1270. In 1331 church and monastery passed to Dominican nuns.
The Roccoco façade was rebuilt in 1770/72 by Giuseppe Vaccà to designs by Anton Francesco Quarantotti removing the 12th-century sculpted architrave with Scenes from the Life of Constantine and Saint Sylvester which is now in Museum of San Matteo, along with the original 12th century ceramic basins, set into the outer wall of the east end, now replaced by copies. Contemporary with the façade are the two statues of Saints Domenic and Sylvester which top it, by Giovanni Antonio Cybei.
In 1782 the monastery became a conservatory for the daughters of noblemen, then in the 19th century it passed first to the Order of Saint Francis of Sales and then to the Ministero dell’Interno who used it, after deconsecration, as a prison, student accommodation, and as a workshop for restoring frescos. Restoration work in 2003-6

Interior
A nave and two aisles, with a carved and gilded wooden ceiling by Cosimo Pugliani from 1612 with nine contemporary canvases by Aurelio Lomi set into it. These depict The Resurrection in the centre, around which are The Four Evangelists. There's also Saint Catherine before the Emperor Maxentius, The Coronation of the Emperor Constantine by Pope Silvester, Saints Dominic, Peter and Paul and the Adoration of the Magi.

Lost art
The Virgin and Child with Angels panel by Turino Vanni from the late 14th century (see left) formerly housed here, was looted by Napoleon and is still in the Louvre, but not usually on display.

Many medieval works from this church are in San Matteo, including a 13th-century dossal showing Christ Pantocrator with the Virgin and Saints John the Baptist, Catherine and Sylvester by the Master of Santa Marta. Also an altarpiece depicting Saint Catherine with Stories from Her Life. The latter was, according to legend, found in 1235 floating in the Arno and recovered by the then Prior of San Silvestro. It is displayed in San Matteo set into a post-Trent (early 17th-century) large oil panel by Paolo Guidotti showing Saints Torpe, Ursula, Cecilia and Ranieri (see right).

History
Founded in 1087 and dedicated to San Sisto in honour of the victory over the Saracens of Al Mahdiya and Zawila on 6th August. Consecrated in 1133. Restorations in the 15th, 17th and 19th centuries have not spoiled the church's medieval appearance and in the 1920s Baroque decoration and stucco accretions were removed.

Façade
Characteristic Pisan decoration with (mostly) Islamic ceramic basins from the 10th-11th centuries (bacini) set into the façade. They are copies, the originals are in the Museum of San Matteo

Interior
A nave and two aisles, divided by columns with reused Roman capitals.  It houses an Arabic tombstone, the copy of a 14th-century Virgin with Child and the rudder and mast of a Pisan galley of the 14th century. The trussed ceiling shows traces of colour from the 19th-century.
An 11th century tomb epigraph in Kufic script, stolen from the Balearic Islands in 1115,  is on the inner-façade. It reads
In the name of God, the Merciful, the Merciful! Men: what God promises is true! May worldly life not deceive you! May the Deceiver not deceive you about God! Emir Abu Nasr is dead - May God make his face shine on Muhammad.
The epigraph is in honour of Emir al Murtadà, who died on Saturday 7 January 1094.
The polychrome marble high altar was sculpted in 1730 by Andrea Vaccà for San Rocco,the small church attached to San Sisto's east end. A wooden polychromed Crucifix modelled on the Volto Santo from Lucca, from 1370, is on the right wall.  The Madonna della Purità of the Pisan school from 1290 - 1300 is at the end of the right aisle.

The 6th of August
The church is dedicated to Pope Sixtus II, a 3rd-century saint who was martyr on the 6th of August. On this day Pisa remembers its victories that took place on that day, and the victims of all wars. A memorial was placed on the side of this church in 1966. Some of the celebrated dates are...
6 August 1087, the Pisans after conquering Pantelleria, landed on the African coast where they conquered Zawila and Mahdiya.
6 August 1113, the Pisan army, led by bishop Pietro, sailed towards the Balearic Islands, which were conquered in a campaign that lasted over a year.
6 August 1119, the Pisans defeated the Genoese in Portovenere.
6 August 1135, the Pisans conquered Amalfi and other cities and castles but were then defeated by the king of Sicily, Ruggero Altavilla.
6 August 1262, the Pisan fleet defeated the Genoese fleet in the waters of Portovenere.

Campanile
The twelfth-century bell tower was restored several times over the centuries.
 

Opening times

For services only.
 

Campanile
Damaged by lightning in 1934.
 

History
First documented in 1029 and seemingly built amongst, and from, ruins - there are bits of Roman masonry still in the walls of the current church, part of an abbey originally belonging to Benedictine monks, the fruit of many alterations. Parts of the church date to before the 10th century, with more from the 10th and 11th century. Archaeology in the 1960s found a square-planned church with a nave and two aisles with the later addition of three apses. Parts of the walls of the earlier church survived into the 11th and 12th century rebuildings.

Façade
Only the circular holes remain where in the 11th-century Islamic bowls (bacini) were inserted. The upper facade is later, with a large circular window with a bishop’s arms above, from the 15th century.

Interior
The church is still divided into a nave and two aisles, separated by alternating columns and pilasters, some of which have recycled ancient capitals. There are traces of medieval frescoes.

Lost art
Two panels from a 14th-century polyptych depicting Camoldolese saints by Francesco Neri da Volterra is in SanMatteo.

History
First documented in 1104, the name deriving from it being outside a gate in the medieval walls. The outer side and rear walls are said to be survivals from this church. In 1153 Rainerius returned to Pisa and entered the monastery her, and subsequently that of Saint Vitus. The church was attached to a hospital from at least 1191 and underwent various renovations, all undocumented except for the rebuilding of the roof of the nave in 1596.

A parish church until 1839, in which year it was deconsecrated with the site set to became a fish-market, which never happened. Restoration followed in 1840-47 including the decoration of the walls and the vault with geometric motifs and busts of saints and the construction of marble confessionals.
In 1847 it passed to the Unione del Sacro Cuore di Maria Santissima per la Conversione dei Peccatori (Union of the Sacred Heart of Holy Mary for the Conversion of the Sinful). External restoration work in 1894 including restoration work on the inset medieval bowls (in 1973 the originals were moved to San Matteo). Heavily damaged during WWII and restored and reopened to the public in 1948. More restoration work followed, in 1995 and 2011, the latter work including a complete rebuilding of the upper façade with its false rose window.

It was deconsecrated again and has been used for performances by the Teatro Sant'Andrea since 1986.
 

Interior
A nave and two aisles, divided by three columns and a pillar on each side - renovated in the 19th century. Of the six columns four have plain Roman capitals and two have Romanesque capitals decorated with human and animal heads. Four neo-Gothic marble confessionals from the 1840 - 1847 rebuilding. Over the high altar is an 18th-century carved and gilded wooden tabernacle from the 18th century, with above it a 19th-century frescoed lunette by B. Grazzini depicting The Divine Shepherd. The two side chapels were made in 1845.
 

History
The church and convent were founded in 1341. They suffered serious damage during WWII and rebuilding afterwards.
The lower façade in banded marble was designed by Lupo and Giovanni di Gante, and Simone di Matteo from Siena in 1399-1401.
On a back wall of the convent, facing Via Zandonai, is a (very) 1989 mural by Keith Haring called Tuttomondo (see right).

 

History
The church and convent of a lay Armenian brotherhood, the Disciplinati di Sant'Antonio, first documented in a deed of sale of a plot of land near the church of San Paolo a Ripa d'Arno by the abbot there to a brother Alessandro Armeno to build a church and a monastery, dated 7th February 1341. The church was in use by 1375 but its form is unknown as, following the Florentine occupation of 1406, it suffered damage and was subsequently abandoned.
In 1477 the Compagnia di Sant'Antonio began the rebuilding of the complex, which then offered hospitality to pilgrims, and later shelter to the poor. Following the amalgamation of the order with the Order of the Knights of Santo Stefano in 1605 baroque 'enhancements' were made throughout the 17th century, the most extravagant of which was the construction of a wooden ceiling with 21 canvases by anonymous local artists depicting The Life of Saint Anthony.
In 1684 at the behest of Grand Duke Cosimo III the complex became an orphanage, the resulting work lasting until the beginning of the 18th century involved putting an extra floor in the former hospital to provide accommodation for the orphans and the consequent plugging of the side windows of the church.
The Institute of the Orphans of Qualquonia passed from the Order of the Knights of Santo Stefano to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and later to the Italian Republic until it was badly damaged during Allied bombing on 31 August 1943 and demolished a few years later to make way for a school.
The church was also damaged, part of the ceiling of the nave and the sacristy behind it collapsed but it was restored, the ceiling was rebuilt and the paintings it contained were moved to San Matteo. The church was later deconsecrated and used first as the gymnasium of the new school, then as a book store for the University Library and finally for social services.
The church is now in a pitiful state of decay, being much in the news in 2014 and the subject of many plans and projects. The interior photo (right) was taken in 1913.

Interior
An aisleless nave. The north wall windows are real but those on the south wall are trompe-l'œil frescoes. Less than half of the special 17th-century wooden ceiling remains.
 

Sant'Apollonia
Via Sant'Apollonia

Santa Caterina
Piazza Santa Caterina

History
First documented in 1211, as attached to a hospital. The current church, with its attached convent, was built between 1251 and 1300, commissioned by Saint Dominic himself, for friars of his order.

panel on the façade

Interior
Renovated after a fire in 1651, it's a big bare dark aisleless barn inside, renovated in the 18th century  There are small window with modern stained glass high-up on the right side. Sparse tombs and altars on both sides until a stripy-arched side-aisle suddenly appears half-way down on the right. Striped arches around the apse and two pairs of chapels flanking too. The  little art there is is sparsely labelled.
The Virgin and Child with Saints Peter and Paul from 1511 by Fra Bartolomeoon is on the left before before the transept and a striking and strange Apotheosis of Saint Thomas Aquinas by Francesco Triani of 1323.
Lippo Memmi. Santi di Tito, Aurelio Lomi (The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine), Raffaello Vanni, and Pietro Dandini  have works in here
There are two nice Tombs 2nd on left and right. The 1342-5 tomb of the Dominican Archbishop of Pisa Simone Salterelli is said to have been commissioned from Andrea Pisano, but executed by his son Nino and his shop (see right) (with a chalice in the British Museum).

Also notable is the tomb of Gherardo Compagni, decorated with a late 16th-century sculpted Pietà.
There's a Roman sarcophagus under the altar table, where there's also a tomb and statues of the Annunciation by Nino Pisano, 1368.
The wooden 17th century pulpit is, according to tradition, one from which Saint Thomas Aquinas preached.

Campanile
Attributed to Giovanni di Simone, who also built the one for the church of San Francesco and the Camposanto.

Lost art

The monumental Santa Caterina Polyptych of 1320 by Simone Martini, painted for the high altar here (see below) now in the Museo Nazzionale di San Matteo, is rare amongst the artist's surviving polyptychs for being almost complete. Damaged by the fire in the church in 1651 it features 42 figures with many saints (Thomas Aquinas before being made one) to be identified by the friars, rather than featuring the stories necessary for the laity.

Lippo Memmi's Triumph of Saint Thomas Aquinas of c. 1323 sees the Saint flanked  by the knowledge-radiating figures of Plato and Aristotle whilst he tramples on Avaroes, the Islamic scholar and champion of Aristotle.
A polyptych of 1345 of Saint Dominic with Scenes from his Life, from the San Domenico chapel here (Cappella dei Caduti) now in the Museo San Matteo, is the only surviving work by the Pisan painter Francesco Traini, who had been a pupil of Simone Martini, that can firmly be attributed to him, being signed and dated. The life of Saint Dominic is a rare subject for altarpieces, unlike that of Saint Francis.
 

Joanna Cannon esp pp 227+

Santa Chiara
Via Roma

There's a  nineteenth-century copy of Enrico di Tedice's Crucifix (14th century) which once hung in this church and in front of which Saint Catherine of Siena had received the stigmata here in 1375.

Raymond of Capua in his Life of Saint Catherine of Siena wrote:
Arriving in Pisa with a number of other people, of whom I was one, Catherine was put up by a citizen who had a house near the Santa Cristina chapel. After receiving communion here she has an ecstatic episode and later tells Raymond 'You must know, Father, that by the mercy of the Lord Jesus I now bear in my body His stigmata." and "I exclaimed, 'O Lord God, I beg you – do not let these scars show on the outside of my body!'

Interior
Nicely proportioned in Brunelleschi-style with Pietra Serena vaults, details and altars - three on the  left and two on the right, the first this side being a chapel. Raised presbytery with modern stained glass in the square apse which has stalls. Franciscan-themed 17th century side altarpieces, one by Francesco Curradi of Saint Francis prays before the Apparition of Christ and the Virgin,  painted after 1627.
The chapel has a very nice gold-ground panel depicting the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Angels (see right) without it's frame. It's by the Portuguese painter Alvaro Pirez di Evora, active in Pisa in the early 15th-century.

Lost art
A Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints Anthony of Padua, Ranieri and Francis by Zanobi Machiavelli from 1460/70 (see below) is in San Matteo.
Following Napoleonic suppression in 1810 a Coronation of the Virgin from 1474, also by Zanobi Machiavelli, was looted by the French and is now in the Dijon Musée des Beaux-arts.

Altarpieces depicting The Death of Santa Teresa by Mauro Soderini and The Death of Saint Joseph by Francesco Conti and Ignazio Hugford are now in the nearby church of San Sisto and in the Museum of San Matteo. Another 13th-century panel depicting the Virgin and Saints Euphrasia and Barbara, probably part of an altarpiece, was moved to the church of Santa Maria Madre della Chiesa, in via Giuseppe Parini after the deconsecration here.
 

History
A church built for Carmelites 1324-1328 and subject to many rebuildings of church and convent in the late 16th/early 17th century, being reconsecrated in 1612, bomb damaged in the WWII, especially the roof, and re-built in 1965. The current façade was designed by Alessandro Gherardesca, in the 1830s. The church was closed for restoration in 2021, was due to reopen in 2022, but was still covered in scaffolding in June 2023.

Interior
Baroque accretions and altars following the Council of Trent mask the 14th-centiry structure. Later altarpieces on the 16th century altars include the Virgin in Glory with Saints by Aurelio Lomi from c.1590 and the Ascension of Christ by Alessandro Allori from 1581, above the first and second altars on the north wall, and the Apparition of the Virgin to St. Andrea Corsini by Francesco Curradi of c.1629, above the altar inside the façade. Other altarpieces are by Baccio Lomi, Santi di Tito, and Andrea Boscoli.
In the refectory there is still a fragment of a 14th century Annunciation. In three lunettes in the cloister there are early 17th century frescoes – what remains of a cycle of Stories from the Lives of Carmelite Saints and The Life of Christ.

Lost art
A polyptych was painted in 1426 by Masaccio for the chapel here of Giuliano di Colino degli Scarsi , a Pisan notary. After the 17th century rebuilding it was split up and dispersed. It is one of only four altarpieces by Masaccio to survive and his being chosen to paint it was probably due to his connection with the Carmelite order after his fresco works for them in the church in in Florence of the same name. The altarpiece was mentioned by Vasari in the second edition of his Lives of the Artists, published in 1568. He describes the Virgin and Child in the centre, with ‘some little angels playing music’, surrounded by Saints Peter, John the Baptist, Julian and Nicholas. He describes a Crucifixion above the Virgin and Child, and that the predella included an image of the Adoration of the Magi. The location of the large saints flanking the Virgin and Child and two of the smaller saints above them is not known.

Of the main panels the central Virgin and Child Enthroned is now in National Gallery in London, the Crucifixion is now in Museo di Capodimonte in Naples, Saint Paul is in San Matteo and Saint Andrew is in the Getty. The three predella panels (The Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist and The Crucifixion of St Peter, The Adoration of the Magi and Stories of Saints Julian and Nicholas) and the four small saints (Augustine, Jerome and two white-robed Carmelite saints) from the pilasters are in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin.
 

A reconstruction of the Masaccio altarpiece

History
First built in 1230 and enlarged after 1325 but to avoid flooding it was rebuilt in 1871 in a higher position. This work, directed by Vincenzo Micheli Pellegrini,  which saw the church raised by about a metre, many sculptures replaced with copies and the sacristy demolished, outraged John Ruskin, visiting Pisa in 1872. It was originally a sailor's oratory called Santa Maria di Pontenovo after the new bridge nearby which collapsed in the 15th century. Its current name refers to the Crown of Thorns relic brought there  in 1333, now in Santa Chiara.

The exterior is faced with polychrome marble. The Virgin and Child with Two Angels in the tabernacle on the façade is attributed to Giovanni Pisano.

Interior
A stripped-out single nave with a ceiling painted during the 19th century reconstruction. In the centre of the presbytery is the Madonna of the Rose by Andrea and Nino Pisano. On the left wall is the tabernacle which housed the thorn relic, by Stagio Stagi from 1534. The relic itself being now in Santa Chiara.

Lost art
The Madonna del Latte, by the Pisanos, once here, is now in San Matteo, as are other figures (some in a dedicated room) and a rose window. Also a 1542 Sacred Conversation by Sodoma.

Ruskin wrote
'As I was drawing the cross carved on the spandril of the western arch of the church of Santa Maria della Spina at Pisa, in 1872, it was dashed to pieces by a mason before my eyes, and the pieces carried away, that a model might be carved from them and set up in its stead'.
On an earlier visit he had reported 'getting upon the roof of Santa Maria della Spina, and sitting in the sunlight that transfused the warm marble of its pinnacles, till unabated brightness went down beyond the arches of the Ponte-a-Mare'.

History
Built in 1342, the church of Santa Viviana in Suarta and the Dominican monastery of Santa Marta, formerly called della Misericordia, now lost, were founded by the Dominican friar the Blessed Domenico Cavalca. The monastery later passed to the Sisters of Penance. The abandoned church, still called, Santa Viviana in Suarta was rebuilt 1760-77 to plans by Matteo Tarocchi, with some involvement by Andrea Vaccà in the sculptural elements. The monastery was suppressed in 1785 and  in 1795 renamed Santa Marta by Archbishop Angiolo Franceschi. On 14 January 2012 the Chapel of the Madonna delle Grazie reopened following restoration work which found original frescoes.

Interior
Aisleless with a barrel vault and stucco work, including vegetables and putti, by Angelo Somazzi. The Crucifix with Stories of the Passion over the high altar is Pisan and dates to 1280.

The left-hand altar, by Giuseppe Vaccà, has Saint Martha asking for the Resurrection of Lazarus by Giovanni Battista Tempesti  from 1770. The other side altar has an Adoration of the Shepherds of 1779 by Lorenzo Pecheux,

Lost art
A 14th century Virgin and Child with Saints polyptych by Giovanni di Nicola, a tabernacle from c.1468 depicting The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Donors by Benozzo Gozzoli (see below left), a Nativity by Francesco Curradi and a Christ in the House of Martha and Magdalene by Matteo Rosselli are all in San Matteo. As is a 1386 polyptych centred on a Crucifixion by Cecco di Pietro (see below right)

Two 14th-century panels depicting S. Margherita and S. Michele Arcangelo are in  the Amedeo Lia Museum in La Spezia.

Santi Vito e Ranieri
Lungarno Simonelli

Interior
An aisless nave, the back wall has a painting of the Flight into Egypt by Aurelio Lomi, here since 1960 .
A 14th-century plaque to the Scacceri family remains on the floor of the original medieval structure.
On the east wall there's a large fresco of San Ranieri, still unfinished, the work being carried out using Renaissance techniques by the artist Luca Battini.

Lost art
During the bombing two paintings by Ranieri Borghetti (1635), one by Tempesti and one attributed to the school of Andrea del Tailor were lost, as was the wooden ceiling, decorated with paintings by the circle of Ventura Salimbeni.

Lost manuscript
The four-volume Calci Bible of 1168, made for this monastery but then passed to the abbey of San Gorgonio on the island of Gorgona, whose holdings went to the Carthusian Certosa of Calci after its closure, where it appears in an inventory of 1378. In 1972 it went to San Matteo Museum, but since October 2014 it has been housed, back at the Certosa, in display cases in the sacristy.
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Campanile
Built in 1793 to designs by Roberto Bombicci and curiously Normanly domed.
 

Founded by the Hospitaller Knights of St. John of Jerusalem in 1113 and documented from as early as 1138, attached to a small hospital. An inscription on a marble slab set into the campanile says that this centrally-planned church was built to designs by Diotisalvi, who designed the Pisa Duomo's circular Baptistery in 1153. His bust by Santo Varni in 1859 is over the front door
An octagonal plan topped by a pyramidal spire, there was also a surrounding Renaissance loggia portico in the 16th century, removed in the 19th, and seen in the drawing from 1840 (see below). The church was dedicated to the Holy Sepulchre because relics from said structure in Jerusalem were brought to Pisa by Archbishop Dagobert upon his return from the First Crusade and this church is shaped like the Dome of the Rock.
There was restoration work 1970-1973, following the flooding of the Arno in 1966, and the church reopened for worship in 1975.

Interior
The interior was rebuilt in Baroque style in 1720, but in the 19th century, when the loggia was demolished, the baroque altars and ornament were removed to return the church to its rough-stone medieval form.
In a niche on the east wall is a 15th centuryVirgin and Child attributed to the school of Benozzo Gozzoli.
Set into the Venetian-style floor by the entrance is the large tombstone of Maria Mancini Colonna, the niece of Cardinal Mazarin and the wife of the viceroy of Naples Lorenzo Colonna, whose name was controversially connected to the future Louis XIV in her younger days.
There's also a small stone well by the south door with a 12th-century bucket said to have been used by Santa Ubaldesca to transform the well's water into wine. She having spent many years here caring for pilgrims. There's a 15th century wooden reliquary of her here too.

Lost art
A 12th century painted Crucifix with Passion Scenes on the front and an Annunciation of the back, by an unknown Roman/Tuscan artist are in the San Matteo gallery.

Campanile
Contemporary with the church, small, Pisan-Romanesque, unfinished, with a rectangular plan.

Opening times
3:30-5:00 pm

Santo Stefano dei Cavalieri
Piazza dei Cavalieri

History
This was the site of an older church called San Sebastiano alle Fabbriche Maggiori, which dated to at least 1074 and took its name from the local blacksmiths' workshops. From the 17th of April 1565 this church was built here for the Knights of Santo Stefano, an order founded by Grand Duke Cosimo de' Medici to fight Saracen piracy in the Mediterranean. It was made to  designs by Giorgio Vasari and completed by David Fortini in August 1567, with consecration on the 21st of December 1569.  The last major rebuilding, by the engineer Gaetano Niccoli, was completed in 1859 after the suppression of the order. Following suppression the church eventually passed to the state. In WWII the church was damaged by a fall of masonry from the campanile, the late Renaissance gilded and painted ceiling suffering severely, but the ceiling paintings had been removed to safety..

Façade
The Carrara marble façade was designed by Don Giovanni de' Medici, the illegitimate son of Cosimo I, with help from Alessandro Pieroni, a Medici favourite, in preference to Vasari's original design. (Many drawings for this church by Vasari and Pieroni are to be found in the Vatican Library)

Interior
An aisleless nave with robes in frames and much 17th-century art, mostly celebrating the Order of the Knights of Santo Stefano.
On the inner-façade and along the walls are five monochrome paintings of Episodes from the Life of Saint Stephen commissioned to celebrate the entry into Pisa of Grand Duke Ferdinand II on March 31, 1588 who himself commissioned the carved and gilded wooden ceiling from Bartolomeo Atticciati (1604). The six panel paintings depict exploits of the Order, executed by Medici-favourite Florentine artists. Starting over the altar is the Vestition of Cosimo I de 'Medici by Ludovico Cardi (il Cigoli) the Return of the Fleet from the Battle of Lepanto by Jacopo Ligozzi, The Embarkation of Maria de'Medici in Livorno by Cristofano Allori, The Victory in the Greek Archipelago by Jacopo Chimenti, called Empoli, who is also responsible for The Taking of the City of Bona, and The Conquest of the City of Preveza, again by Ligozzi.
On the left wall the polychrome marble pulpit is by the Florentine Chiarissimo Fancelli (1627), coming from the Duomo. On the right, near the presbytery, is the 1593 painting by the Pisan Aurelio Lomi of the Virgin and Child with Saints Joseph and Stephen, made for the nearby Palace of the Order of the Knights.
 The altar and the nave were designed by Pier Francesco Silvani. In the right wing of the transept there was the Stoning of Saint Stephen from 1571 by Vasari, currently exhibited in the presbytery. In the left wing is Bronzino 's Nativity, signed and dated 1564.

Campanile
Built between 1570 and 1572 by Giovanni Fancelli to designs by Vasari.

Lost art
Donatello's reliquary bust of San Rossore (Saint Luxurius) (see right) from 1422-25 is now in the San Matteo museum. This version was commissioned when the Humiliati translated his skull  relic from this church to their church of Ognissanti in Florence in 1422.

A very blue Lady of Sorrows panel from c.1520 by Quentyn Metsys. It was recovered after a theft by the Artistic Heritage Protection Command Unit in Florence in 2014. It's now also in San Matteo.

Opening
Monday to Saturday, 10.00 am-7.00 pm / Sunday 1.00 pm-7.30 pm
Ticket: € 1.50
Update June 2023 None of the above seems to be true.