Pisa - The Piazza of Miracles [antikvár]

THE PIAZZA OF MIRACLES1. - GENERAL VIEW OF THE PIAZZA OF MIRACLES.For the traveller to Pisa, seeing the shapes of its great monuments rising to dominate the center of the town and growing ever larger as distance diminishes and particularly for those who come from the north along the Via Aure-lia or descend the road from the height of S. Giuliano, it is difficult to imagine the majesty of the spectacle which one discovers on sudden-ly coming into the Piazza del Duomo. (Photo 1) On an immense green carpet, disposed over a well calculated space like verses in a marve-lous rhyme, rise majestically the Duomo, the Baptistry, the famous Tower, the Campo Santo, to form a harmony which for its singular beauty has been properly acclaimed as the Piazza of Mir-acles. The four monuments are silhoyetted against the sky in surroundings which have re-mained almost unchanged since they were con-ceived. To the west and north the Piazza is bound by a wall dating from the 12th century, to the south by the faiadé of the hospitál > these modest and discreet boundaries enclose a grassy stage on which the architecture survives almost undisturbed by recent innovations made necessary by the exigencies of modern traffic.The particular stylistic unity of the monuments is clearly suggestive of a world now far removed in time from ours and its impact on visitors of every race and nation is evidenced by the astonishment they reveal, many seeming to believe simply that this architecture sprang sud-denly and completely into being as if brought to life by the magic wand of a fairy endowed by charity and intelligence.This stylistic unity, rare fruit of an assembly of buildings constructed in different eras, matured during the three centuries from the llth to the end of the 14th. It is the work of a number of artists who, though they were separated by con-siderable periods of time, remained faithful and sensitive to a form that gave shape to these very monuments which became the highest and most genuine expression of Pisán Romanesque.Meanwhile, we stress again the unity of the architectural complex of the Piazza without ignor-ing the later superimpositions, always limited and subdued, almost overwhelmed by the exuber-ant vitality of the construction that flowered in the most fertile period of the Pisán style.