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QLES2009, 9-11 September 2009 - Workshop Venue
The workshop is hosted at the Polo Didattico Carmignani, located at
number 6 of the historical Piazza dei Cavalieri of Pisa.
Travelling directions can be found here.
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Pisa, located in western Tuscany just 80 km from Florence and 10
km from the sea, is known throughout the world for its famous
Leaning Tower, which dominates and exalts the magnificence of
Piazza dei Miracoli. The Leaning Tower
however is not the only beauty that the city has to offer. Every
historical period that Pisa has gone through has left precious
proof: from the Etruscans to the contemporary, crossing the Middle
Ages, the Renaissance, Mannerism and Romanticism. Pisa, in the past
an Etruscan settlement and subsequently a Roman Colony, rises close
to the Tirrenian Sea on the banks of the river Arno. The Middle
Ages gave it its period of maximum splendour: in the XI Century
Pisa intensified trade in the Mediterranean Sea and became one of
the four main historical Maritime Republics of Italy (Repubbliche
Marinare).
Oriented towards Ghibelline politics, Pisa was the only free
Commune in all of Tuscany to openly support the Swabian sovereigns
and were thus in contrast with the Papacy. The gradual decline of
the city was decreed by its rival Genoa with the defeat of Meloria
in 1284 and subsequently also by Florence. The loss of predominance
over the sea placed Pisa in a kind of isolation from which it only
emerged around 1500.
Pisa is now a lively city and one of the most important
university towns in Italy, thanks to its prestigious University
(see below), the Scuola Superiore di
Studi Universitari Sant’Anna and the Scuola Normale Superiore, unique in
Italy and instituted by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1813.
As a university city Pisa is full of life and cultural events. Its centre is full
of all sorts of meeting
places: pubs, restaurants, pizzerias, inns, aperitif bars,
discos and live music bars. Along Lungarni or next to the streets
of Piazza Garibaldi, in the old centre of the town, you can stop
for the classic aperitif and a chat in one of the many bars packed
with students.
In the north-west of Pisa there is an immense green lawn, known
as the Piazza dei Miracoli
(Field of Miracles), on which four impressive buildings stand in
gleaming white marble.
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The leaning tower
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Cathedral (Duomo): construction begun in
1064. The cathedral is dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption. The
interior is richly adorned with marble incrustations in polychrome
panels and several marble sculptures (e.g. the Madonna with Child
by Andrea Pisano). The apse is decorated by the mosaic of the
Redeemer with the Madonna and the Baptist by Cimabue. The marble
pulpit is a work of Giovanni Pisano. |
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Baptistery (Battistero): construction
started in 1152. The design by Diotisalvi was based on the model of
the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the building was carried out by
Nicola Pisano (who sculptured the Baptistery marble pulpit) and
taken up again by his son Giovanni, as the dome is of uncertain
attribution. |
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Leaning Tower: the Bell Tower’s
building began in 1173 maybe under the guidance of Gerardo di
Gerardo. After work on the third storey was completed, the tower
started leaning at the fourth storey so its building was
interrupted and completed only in the second half of 14th century,
at the hand of Tommaso Pisano. The height of the tower is 55
meters; in order to reduce its leaning or to prevent it from
increasing many corrective reconstruction and stabilization efforts
were carried out. |
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Camposanto Monumentale: it is a walled
cemetery, is said to have been built around a shipload of sacred
soil from Golgotha, brought back to Pisa from the Fourth Crusade by
Ubaldo de’ Lanfranchi , archbishop of Pisa in the 12th
century. It contained a huge collection of Roman sculptures and
sarcophagi, but now there are only 84 left. The walls were once
covered in frescoes. The most remarkable fresco is the realistic
The Triumph of Death. But in 1944 incendiary bombs dropped by
Allied aircraft set the roof on fire and covered them in molten
lead, all but destroying them. Since 1945 restoration works have
been going on and now the Camposanto has been brought back to its
original state.
Piazza dei Miracoli |
The Cathedral and the leaning tower |
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Further
places of interest |
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Piazza dei Cavalieri: Laid out in 1560 by
Giorgio Vasari, the Piazza Dei Cavalieri opens unexpectedly from
the narrow backstreets and the central square of medieval Pisa. The
curving Palazzo dei Cavalieri houses the Scuola Normale Superiore,
and adjoins the church of Santo Stefano dei Cavalieri. On the other
side of the square is the imposing Palazzo dell'Orologio and
heading east is the Borgo Stretto, one of Pisa's most animated
streets with a wide selection of shops and coffees. The Piazza dei
Cavalieri was once the seat of the Ordine dei Cavalieri di Santo
Stefano, (Order of the Knights of St. Stephen), which was a
religious and military institution founded to defend the coast from
possible threats by the Turks. |
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Church of Santa Maria
della Spina
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Churches of San Francesco, San
Paolo a Ripa d’Arno, San Sisto, San Zeno |
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Museums: Museo
dell’Opera del Duomo, Museo delle Sinopie, Museo Nazionale di
San Matteo |
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The banks of river Arno (Lungarni)
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Piazza dei Cavalieri
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The University of Pisa,
officially founded in 1343, is one of the most ancient and
prestigious universities in Italy. More details on its history can
be found
here.
Today the University of Pisa boasts eleven faculties and
fifty-seven departments, with high level research centers
especially in the field of Physics, Mathematics, Engineering and
Computer Sciences. Pisa is strengthening its vocation as a "campus
city", with nearly 50 thousand students upon 90 thousand
inhabitants. The university is housed throughout the city, owning
many historical buildings (Palazzo della Sapienza, Palazzo alla
Giornata, Palazzo Boileau, Palazzo Ricci) and the oldest university
botanical garden in Europe.
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The botanical garden
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The hall of Palazzo della Sapienza |
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