Qualla: Camposanto Monumentale

Camposanto Monumentale: Introduction

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joanbanjo, CC BY-SA 3.0. According to legend, bodies buried in the ground of the Camposanto Monumentale decompose in just 24 hours. The soil was said to be sacred -- a shipload of earth brought from Golgotha, the hill of Christ's crucifixion, by Archbishop Ubaldo Lanfranchi of Pisa during the Third Crusade in the 12th century. Whether the story is true, the Pisans believed it enough to build one of the most extraordinary burial grounds in Christendom: a vast Gothic cloister at the northern edge of the Cathedral Square, its walls covered with more than 2,600 square meters of frescoes -- a greater painted surface than the Sistine Chapel.

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Image: Joanbanjo | CC BY-SA 3.0

Camposanto Monumentale: The Last Building on the Square

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit gabriele bartolucci, CC BY 2.5. The Camposanto was the fourth and final structure raised in Pisa's Piazza del Duomo, joining the cathedral, the baptistery, and the bell tower that would become famous for its lean. Construction began in 1278 under the architect Giovanni di Simone, who envisioned a huge, oblong G...

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Image: gabriele bartolucci | CC BY 2.5

Camposanto Monumentale: Sarcophagi and Galileo's Lamp

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sailko, CC BY 2.5. The inner court is a world of its own. Forty-three blind arches compose the outer wall. Inside, elaborate round arches with slender mullions frame a central lawn where some tombs lie in the open, though most are sheltered under the arcades. The Camposanto once contained a vast co...

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Image: Sailko | CC BY 2.5

Camposanto Monumentale: Painted Walls of Death and Judgment

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sailko, CC BY 2.5. The frescoes were the Camposanto's supreme treasure. Beginning in the 1330s with works attributed to Francesco Traini, the walls accumulated layer upon layer of painted narrative over three centuries. The most famous cycle -- the Last Judgment, Hell, the Triumph of Death, and the...

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Image: Sailko | CC BY 2.5

Camposanto Monumentale: Three Days of Fire

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sailko, CC BY 2.5. On 27 July 1944, during an Allied air raid on Pisa, a bomb fragment struck the Camposanto and started a fire. The blaze burned for three days. The timber and lead roof collapsed, exposing everything inside to the inferno. Most of the sculptures and sarcophagi were destroyed or se...

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Image: Sailko | CC BY 2.5