Trip to Pisa

Day Trip to Pisa
One of the advantages of living in this magical place called Rome, or, at any rate, near enough to it that the magic is still at 100% potency, is that I can wake up early on a Saturday morning, sit up in bed, and say to myself: “Hmm, I think I’ll go to Pisa today,” and it happens! So I got up, did the usual stuff, walked down the driveway to the train station, boarded the first train passing by, and three hours later, there I was: another train station!
Train stations tend to be ugly places, in Italy at any rate, and Pisa Centrale was no exception. I am sure that there is a mathematical formula out there, where one can input “expectation” on one side of the equation, and “reality” on the other, and if you are careful with all your divisions, you get that proportionate amount of “disappointment” any one situation can cause. After three hours on a train with lovely vistas of Tuscan countryside, the output was definitely low, bordering on dangerous when I got my first look at Pisa.
My immediate reaction was to get help at the INFO kiosk nearby, but I schooled myself, after a quick reminder that I wasn’t a tourist, and I was here merely to enjoy myself, and not to hunt for all the requisite “tourist stuff.” To my right there was a street full of people, and to my left, one comparatively empty. Ah, choice. I took Pliny’s advice and avoided the crowd, specially because it seemed to me that there was some 19th century architecture further up the street. That’s usually a good sign in Italy. In places like Toronto, once you reach the Victorian stuff, you’re stuck, but over here the 19th century eventually gives way to better things.
I went by a church, a pretty little thing on the outside, very obviously a 19th century Tuscan gothic revival. I decided to stop by and have a chat with you know who. Sadly, the inside had been mutilated. I said a quick prayer for all of us, mostly to distract myself from dark thoughts of how the 8th century labeled as heresy, what we now call engaging the Church with the modern world.
I was right; walking further down the street, 19th soon ceded to 18th and so on until I found myself before a very handsome 17th century white stucco facade. A large coat of arms (red cross over a white ground) advertised who had financed the place, but I am unfortunately too ignorant to know who Red cross on white happened to be. By now my mood had taken a bipolar turn, and I was beaming gladness, maybe even smiling by this point.
Pliny’s advice proved golden, because shortly after, my street ran out, and I was face to face with the Arno! Not so precious as my beloved Tiber, but it does hold a privileged place in my heart. There it was in its broad tranquil beauty, mesmerizing me, when it came to me of a sudden: a choice. Left or right? One can’t go wrong by going right, I said, but this time it wasn’t a struggle at all to chose left , because about a dozen meters away, clinging to the river bank, was a magical white pointy castle straight out of an early 15th century illumination.
A made a beeline for what I knew was definitely 14th century Tuscan architecture. As I got nearer, and could discern the white marble better, and the tell-tale horizontal bands of coloured marble (grey in this case) I recognized it was a church. But what a church. A little tiny toy church, all pointy and unashamedly gothic, with gargoyles giving me a ferocious eye, and dozens of stiff saints offering me their scrolls with important Latin texts together with their sanctimonious smiles. The church was so small, that looking through the bottle-glass windows I could make out the sunshine coming through on the opposite side.
Well I definitely want to stop here, I tell myself. I paid my requisite 2 euro reminder that the modern Italian state had made everything better for the plebs, and I was inside. A very informative brochure let me know that I was in Santa Maria della Spina, a church built to house one of the thorns which pierced our Lord’s brow, and to guard the New bridge, which, if it still existed, would be decidedly old today. Thankfully the Thorn relic had been removed. I say this because I get so embarrassed genuflecting to the Passion relics inside museums; people might think I’m Catholic or something. There was a charming statue of our Lady inside however, made the more so by a wonderful elegiac couplet inscribed on the altar, which I copied out to share with all of you:
Saxea sum sed si fertis pia vota precesque
mansuetum duro marmore numen erit.
Which I translate rather loosely as: I’m made of rock but if you bring devout offerings and prayers, God will be milder than hard marble. As always, it sounds better in Latin. It inspired me to say a few poor prayers for all of us, and then I left our Lady in peace to guard her bridge that had been torn down. Maybe some day she will rebuild it, and all manner of other things that modernity has broken.
Next I had to find a bridge that still spanned the river. There was one right outside Santa Maria della Spina but it was a hideous modern structure. Well that won’t do, I tell myself conversationally, and seeing a bell tower further down the river, I make my way towards it, temporarily abandoning my plan to cross the Arno. All the way to the campanile stretched a very large convent along the river, that, an inscription assured me, had once been the home of Benedictine nuns. By the looks of it today, it now harbors one more tentacle of the Italian bureaucracy. I wondered: did the nuns go extinct on their own, or were they helped along by the Napoleonic visitation? Who needs all those useless nuns praying all day for our salvation anyway, right?
There it was, another church. San Paolo a ripa d’Arno, but unfortunately closed. Very nice on the outside however. Across from the little park in front of the church was an old city gate. I enjoyed looking at that. I have grown to like walls tremendously, you know. All the good cities had them or still do. They keep barbarians out, you see, and that is always good. Reaching what remained of the old ramparts convinced me that I wouldn’t want to go any further along the river in my current direction, because all the good stuff would have been inside the walls not out. Besides, there was an impressive tower right across the river I definitely wanted to investigate.
A bridge was conveniently placed by the 20th century right at that spot. This means, of course, that it was no better than the previous bridge, but equally as foul. Once again, I was faced with a choice: To either abandon (temporarily) my principles, or to swim across the river. I trust you all know what I did.
The view halfway across the Arno, looking back towards the middle of the city, right at the point where the old naval munitions used to be, all perfectly framed with a clear blue sky and the awesome presence of the mountains in the background, is nothing short of spectacular. The height of the stately palaces on either side of the river in proportion to the width of the placid Arno is so perfect, as to be a textbook study of the Golden Ratio in some Renaissance manual.
I got to my medieval tower, and I learned it was the remains of the extensive water munitions that once existed at this point in the river. I didn’t stay long investigating the tower because better things were drawing my attention. You know the old adage “Ubi major minor cedit”. Not visible before from the other side, but very close to the tower and also stretching along the river bank was a long brick building that immediately reminded me of the Roman baths. It looked like it had been constructed out of the very tops of the baths one sees in Rome, stacked side by side in a row. My powers of description are weak, and I know that what I just wrote makes no sense, but just trust me that the building was very interesting.
Even more so was a series of inscriptions (in Latin of course) that told a brave tale of Pisans fighting a great naval battle near Euboea (kinda far from home), liberating Christian slaves, capturing enemy ships, and even defeating an Archipirata. How exciting it all was, at least from a literary point of view; I don’t doubt that the actual historical event was awful. Each inscription began with a similar line: “The prow of the ship you see displayed above you...” which leads me to believe that in good old Roman fashion, the victors stuck the prows of the captured enemy ships into the walls above the inscriptions. No trace of them left though. I hope time had her way with them, and not political correctness.
By now I am feeling very pleased with myself for having had the excellent idea of going to Pisa for the day. I merrily made my way along the river, back up to the first odious bridge near S. Maria della Spina (but on the opposite side now). Lo, the street running from the bridge into town was called Via Roma! Good, I’ll take that one. I walked and walked until at the far end of the street, the top of a large red shingled dome began to appear. I was definitely going in the right direction. But first, I made a stop at another open church.
As Divine Providence would have it, it was the Capuchin church that now hosted the relic of the Thorn. So I stopped there for a while, did my duty, and said hello. On my way out I saw that free tourist maps were available, the kind with all the good stuff tourists should go see depicted in 3D. They have them in Rome too. So I took one, and realized that if instead of walking straight along this street and shortly reaching the Cathedral and all the other stuff Pisa is famous for, I turned left into St. Clare’s hospital instead, I could go see another chunk of medieval wall. Brilliant I said, but the map led me astray. The fates were ill disposed. Despite all their appearance of being useful, these 3D maps are highly inaccurate.
So I got lost, and wandered around aimlessly for who knows how long. Of course I could have turned back, but that would imply I had made a mistake in the first place, so I bravely trudged on. Eventually I popped out onto a major street, having walked through the oddest hospital I have ever had the displeasure of visiting. It was more akin to a village, with more street than housing. So I cursed the map, but nonetheless consulted it to establish, at least vaguely, where I might be. According to it I was several blocks south of where I wanted to go. All wasn’t lost however. If I followed my present street I would reach the Duomo with the added advantage of approaching it from outside the city walls. That should prove exciting I thought.
So I walked. I went by another church, if I should even call it that, but I didn’t stop by, since it didn’t conform to my aesthetic sense of piety, merely signing myself as I walked by. This should give you an idea of what the rest of Pisa looked like in this particular neighborhood. Very similar to the Train station in fact.
So onward I went, grumble, curse, grumble, and quite suddenly, as I reached the corner of a large building that had up to now thoroughly blocked my view to the right—crenellations! I had made it; I was back in civilization, and not a moment too soon. I passed under the pristine white arch of the city gates. The white marble in Pisa looks very warm and happy in the sun, very different from the ubiquitous Roman travertine, that has a more mellow aspect.
What a view! A blue blue sky as perfect a blue as there could be, and the grass so perfectly green it put Crayola to shame, and in between, the baptistery, cathedral, campo santo, and campanile. At this point I have to stop trying to describe what I saw, which in the ancient schools of rhetoric was considered an advanced skill. One, sadly, I don’t posses.
So here is what I did instead. I walked by the dozen or so vendors of tourist kitsch, not needing to take even a quick look to know what they were selling. It is the same garbage sold at every single stall in Rome and probably every city in this country: white plastic replicas (“aged” mind you) of the leaning tower, the David, the Pieta, and for no reason I can fathom, the Venus de Milo. Why not the Statue of Liberty or the Eifel tower? I ask myself. Between avoiding the hordes of befuddled tourists mentally calculating whether they want an armless statue they never saw in this country, and ignoring the onslaught of the Bangladeshi vendors piping up meaningless but incessant streams of “Vuoi? vuoi? vuoi?”, my concentration slips and my tunnel vision shatters. My helpless eyes fall on the first object available and focus: a leaning Tower the height of my arm’s length, with an electric cord snaking away its bottom. I shudder and walk away lamenting that there are people in this world that for 10 euros will buy a leaning tower of Pisa lamp.
On to the ticket booth at the museum of the Sinopie. In a very broken English, the helpful Italian girl at the desk was trying to explain that I could buy a ticket with two “choices” or three, to choose between the 5 available monuments. I responded in Italian that, like St Teresa of the Child Jesus (ok, I left that part out—but I was thinking it!) I choose everything. After a confused moment, and my reassurances that I was not the least bit interested in climbing the tower (one never knows when it will end up falling after all), for the price of a Leaning Tower of Pisa lamp, I had an all inclusive ticket in my hand that would open all doors.
First stop, the baptistery. I won’t try to describe what I saw, but share a few anecdotes assuring you that I loved everything, that it was all fantastically beautiful, and that consequently I was supremely happy. My favourite piece in the baptistery was the pulpit. I got a perverse feeling of superiority (I know this is a character flaw) when people failed to identify our Lady’s birth in one of the relief panels. I LOVED the lions, especially the one eating the lamb. Can’t really explain why though. I climbed to the upper gallery; got vertigo. At one point a strange woman asked for silence, climbed the steps of the font, and began vocalizing notes. Very weird, but it did allow me to experience the brilliant acoustics.
On to the Cathedral. I loved the doors, and I was particularly tickled by the rhinoceros on the bottom left panel of the doors to the left of the middle entrance. Was even more impressed by the pulpit in the cathedral. Absolutely stunning. I won’t even bother talking about the tragic table for the new Mass.....The Blessed Sacrament Altar was particularly fine.
The Campo Santo is a wonderful and unique structure, essentially four Porticos (but gothic, not classical) surrounding a rectangular patch of the greenest grass your eyes have ever seen, growing on several tons of earth imported from Jerusalem after one of the Crusades (forget which one). The Porticos are very wide, and very tall, and full of tombs. Once the walls were completely covered in late 14th, early 15th century frescos, but a bomb in 1944 destroyed most of them. A few fragments survive here and there, and a museum across the way has some of the preparatory sketches for the frescos (the Sinopie). They were discovered after the tragedy underneath the peeling pigment. It surprised everyone then, and me today, because it is not the usual method when working in fresco, to make a sketch directly on a wall, but rather transfer an image by a complicated method I won’t go into here (you’ll have to take my Vatican tour). In fact, until today, I didn’t know there was another method.
So I went to the Sinopie, and afterwards the diocesan museum, which is mostly original architectural decorations that were replaced by copies in their original location and placed in the museum for conservation. I was feeling very tired by then, and looking at my watch I noticed it was quarter past 2. I grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then just started wandering around the city. Saw the old university, the old market, went into one more church, but I noticed that things were starting to blend in and I wasn’t really focusing anymore. It was time to go home.
I had a wonderful day, more so than I can express in writing, and all I can suggest is that you come and visit and experience it for yourself.