Liberal Arts Blog — Italy (Part VII) Pisa — the Baptistry, the Cathedral, the Leaning Tower, the Old Cemetery

Liberal Arts Blog — Sunday is the Joy of Humor, Food, Travel, Practical Life Tips, and Miscellaneous Day

Today’s Topic: Italy (Part VII) Pisa — the Baptistry, the Cathedral, the Leaning Tower, the Old Cemetery

The “Leaning Tower” is one of four stunning structures in the “Piazza dei Miracoli” (the “Square of Miracles.”) Today a few notes on each. For broader context, Pisa is an ancient town that lies at the mouth of the Arno which also passes through Florence. One Galilean legend relates to the tower (the dropping of two cannon balls). A second to the cathedral (the incense lamp). Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.

THE OLD CEMETERY — aka “The Camposanto Monumentale,” “the Camposanto Vecchio,” “Campo Santo”

1. Allegedly built on top of a boatload of sacred soil brought back from Calvary outside of Jerusalem where Christ was crucified. The soil was brought back after the Third Crusade (1189–1190) by the Archbishop of Pisa, Ubaldo Lanfranchi.

2. Construction of the cemetery began in 1278 but was not completed until 1464. “The walls of the vast structure were covered in over 2600 meters squared of frescoes, a greater expanse than the Sistine Chapel.”

3. The building was severely damaged by an Allied bombing raid in July 1944 and restoration work was not completed until 2018.

NB: The Campo Santo also includes 84 Roman sarcophagi.

THE CATHEDRAL — GALILEO’S LAMP, THE CARVED PULPIT

1. “Galileo is believed to have formulated his theory about the movement of a pendulum by watching the swinging of the incense lamp (not the present one) hanging from the ceiling of the nave. That lamp, smaller and simpler than the present one, is now kept in the Camposanto, in the Aulla chapel.”

2. “The elaborately carved pulpit (1302–1310),…was made by Giovanni Pisano, a masterwork of medieval sculpture. Having been packed away during the redecoration, it was not rediscovered and restored until 1926.” (See below.)

THE BAPTISTRY: the tallest in Italy and, in fact, a few centimeters taller than the Leaning Tower (if you include the statue of St. John the Baptist that stands at its top).

1. Building began in 1153. The baptismal font dates from 1246 and the pulpit from 1255–60. The building was completed in 1363.

2. “Constructed on the same unstable sand as the tower and cathedral, the Baptistery leans 0.6 degrees toward the cathedral.”

3. “The Pisa Baptistery is an example of the transition from the Romanesque style to the Gothic style: the lower section is in the Romanesque style, with rounded arches, while the upper sections are in the. Gothic style, with pointed arches.”

NB: “The Baptistery is constructed of marble, as is common in Italian architecture.”

THE BELL TOWER (“the Campanile”) better known as “The Leaning Tower of Pisa”

1. “Construction of the bell tower began in 1173 and took place in three stages over the course of 177 years, with the bell-chamber only added in 1372.”

2. “Five years after construction began, when the building had reached the third floor level, the weak subsoil and poor foundation led to the building sinking on its south side. The building was left for a century, which allowed the subsoil to stabilize itself and prevented the building from collapsing.”

3 “In 1272, to adjust the lean of the building, when construction resumed, the upper floors were built with one side taller than the other. The seventh and final floor was added in 1319. By the time the building was completed, the lean was approximately 1 degree, or 80 cm (2.5 feet) from vertical. At its greatest, measured prior to 1990, the lean measured approximately 5.5 degrees. As at 2010, the lean was reduced to approximately 4 degrees.”

NB: “Between 1589 and 1592, Galileo Galilei, who lived in Pisa at the time, is said to have dropped two cannonballs of different masses from the tower to demonstrate that their speed of descent was independent of their mass, in keeping with the law of free fall.”

Piazza dei Miracoli — Wikipedia

Camposanto Monumentale di Pisa — Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvary

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaning_Tower_of_Pisa

LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED THEMATICALLY:

PDF with headlines — Google Drive

ATTACHMENTS BELOW:

#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).

#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, 11/17/20YOUR TURN

Anything miscellaneous to share? Best trip you ever took in your life? Practical life tips? Random facts? Jokes? Or, what is the best cartoon you have seen lately? or in the last 10 years? or the last 50? Or what is your favorite holiday food? Main course? Dessert? Fondest food memories? Favorite foods to eat or prepare?

This is your chance to make someone else’s day. Or to cement in your mind a memory that might otherwise disappear. Or to think more deeply about something dear to your heart. Continuity is key to depth of thought.