Qualla: Pisa Cathedral

Pisa Cathedral: Introduction

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit José Luiz, CC BY-SA 3.0. The columns came from a mosque. In 1063, Pisan warships overwhelmed Palermo's defenses, and among the spoils hauled back across the Tyrrhenian Sea were granite Corinthian columns that would be set between the nave and aisles of a cathedral not yet begun. Construction started the following year under the architect Buscheto, and from the very beginning Pisa Cathedral was a building that combined conquest with creation, Islamic precedent with Christian purpose, Roman spolia with medieval ambition. The result was something genuinely new: a style of architecture so distinctive that art historians gave it its own name. Pisan Romanesque would influence church building across Tuscany and beyond, but its purest expression remains here, on the eastern edge of the Piazza dei Miracoli.

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Image: José Luiz | CC BY-SA 3.0

Pisa Cathedral: A New Architectural Language

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NormanB, CC BY-SA 3.0. Buscheto's design layered traditions. Byzantine mosaics and pointed arches coexist with Romanesque arcading and classical proportions. The facade, built by a master named Rainaldo -- who left his signature above the middle door as Rainaldus prudens operator -- rises in tiers of g...

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Image: NormanB | CC BY-SA 3.0

Pisa Cathedral: Fire, Restoration, and Galileo's Lamp

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MenkinAlRire, CC BY-SA 4.0. A devastating fire in 1595 destroyed most of the Renaissance artworks that had accumulated inside over five centuries. The coffered ceiling was replaced with the current gold-decorated version bearing the Medici coat of arms. The massive bronze doors, cast in Giambologna's worksh...

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Image: MenkinAlRire | CC BY-SA 4.0

Pisa Cathedral: The Pulpit That Told Stories in Stone

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0. Giovanni Pisano's pulpit deserves its own contemplation. Supported by columns mounted on lion sculptures, caryatids, and a telamon, it carries figures of Saint Michael, the Evangelists, the four cardinal virtues, and a bold nude Hercules that echoes his father Nicola's revolution...

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Image: sailko | CC BY-SA 3.0

Pisa Cathedral: Sacred Bones and a Solar Calendar

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit José Luiz, CC BY-SA 3.0. The cathedral holds the bones of Saint Ranieri, Pisa's patron saint, and once held the tomb of Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII, carved by Tino da Camaino in 1315. Political fortunes moved that tomb repeatedly -- the sarcophagus remains in the cathedral, but statues from it ended up ...

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Image: José Luiz | CC BY-SA 3.0