Pisa – J-term Abroad: Roman Structures, Engineering & Society

Field Trips!

Buonasera everyone, today we had the honour to travel to Pisa and see the Leaning Tower, Cathedral, Baptistery of San Giovanni, and Monumental Cemetery. We started the morning by making our way down to Hotel Grifone’s breakfast buffet and then traveled the long distance two rooms down to our new meeting space for a class on the engineers and advancements of the Renaissance era (Thanks, Brynn, Larissa, and Maddy) along with art analysis. After wrapping up, we loaded up the bus and left Florence through the rolling hills and mountains of Tuscany towards Pisa

Upon arriving, we had to change to a train that rivals only the high-speed train from earlier, the Tschu-Tschu, which took us right to the central square.

Our first sight of the day was the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which leans because of the loose sandy soil that Pisa was built on (Before the modern era, the area of Pisa was underwater). Additionally, most buildings in Pisa actually lean as well; however, due to their foundations having a larger surface area, the effects are less dramatic. The tower also closed several years ago due to its lean getting too large; it has since had additional foundations built to prevent the lean from growing larger. Here is a photograph of the class imitating the lean that the tower has.

The second thing that we saw was the Cathedral of Pisa. This was the very old church that has been around since 1118. It also suffered from a fire that burned most of the roof in 1595. This led them to having to rebuild the roof. Which now has this beautiful 24-carat gold pattern to it.

The next thing that we saw was the Baptistery of San Giovanni is a very old round building in Pisa where people were baptized. It has a mix of Romanesque and Gothic styles. The building is famous for its great acoustics, where sounds echo beautifully inside. Its acoustics come from its dome, which is a double dome with an outer pointed dome, an inner hemispherical dome, and most importantly for the acoustics a hollow space in between the two, escaping soundwaves reverberate in this hollow space causing sounds in the baptistery to be sustained for longer.

The last thing we said was the Pisa Monumental Cemetery. This was built in 1277 and was the cemetery for the people of Pisa. At the time it was built, every person who lived in Pisa was buried there, regardless of their class status. This is no longer the case as just Bishops and Archbishops who are from the area are buried there. Additionally, during the Second World War an American bomber accidently dropped a bomb on the cemetery causing a fire to break out in the wooden roof, melting its lead roof tiles and damaging the artwork on the walls. Fortunately, this story has a happy end, after the end of the war an American artist traveled to Pisa to help the town repair the cemetery, as a thanks to him, he was allowed to be buried in it.

Finally, we loaded back on the bus to return to Florence to rest and recoup for tomorrow and another fabulous day in Italy.

Until then,

Ciao

-Joshua Ryberg and Jacob Jude

January 19, 2026 by rybe3668

Field Trips!

Marble. Marble Everywhere

“Expecting much gunfire in these caves?” Not exactly, but I couldn’t help but wish to see some classic dynamite mining.

Welcome back ladies and gentlemen to crunch time in Italia! With very few days left, we’re packing it all in and getting oh so little sleep in the process. For example, today we took a trip to the marble quarry that Michelangelo got his materials from and then to Pisa for the famous tower.

Today started with another early expedition, and so we were all ecstatic about it. For around 1.5 hours we sat on the bus as the beautiful scenery of Tuscany flew by. It was then that we arrived at Cave Michelangelo, a massive and famous marble company. Our tour started with their cutting yards where they had massive multi-ton slabs all over the place waiting to be cut into perfect shapes. It was raining, as it often seems to do these days, so we rushed into their sculpting center.

A bit cluttered…

There were sculptures all over the place. Some of them were originals, others were replicas of famous works, but all of them were phenomenal. At the time there were a few workers happily working on their projects and packing up some to ship to customers. The building itself was fairly large and spacious, but they had art in every corner and covering every inch of the place, making it feel quite populated. Our guide led us around and explained some of the work and the processes they went through. I would repeat them to you but I’m afraid I’d mess them up and that I’ve forgotten some details since this morning. Promptly after that, the guide led us into the office where he showed us some of their sculptures locations across the world. These guys knew what they to say the least.

Since it was raining there was doubt that we would be allowed to head up into the quarry on the mountain, but we were given the go-ahead. We all expected to use some sort of off-road vehicle to get up there, but instead we discovered the bus would be our vehicle. If we thought the roads were a tight fit before, we were wrong. The mountain path was as tight as it could be, pushing our bus to the limit. At point we were doubtful the little bus could continue up the steep incline, but we were proven wrong time and again. That bus driver deserves an award for that display of skill.

So this is only one slice of their operations…

Finally we made it to the top and the view was impressive. Not only were we nearing the peak of the mountain range, but the marble cutting operations were a spectacle on their own. Layers upon layers of white marble with cutting machines and other vehicles all the way up. There’s not much I can do to express how impressive it all was. After a while of observation and some guidance, we hopped back on the bus for a bumpy ride down to get on the way to our next destination.

The main courtyard of Pisa and its tourist attractions

Some amount of time later we arrived at the outskirts of Pisa. From there we had to get on a bus that would take us right up to the main attractions. The moment we stepped off of the bus we were berated by salesmen trying to get us to buy watches, sunglasses, and handbags. We were happy to disappoint them all. Everyone made it onto the bus and over to the main square that contained a baptistry, a basilica, a graveyard, and the leaning tower itself. As per usual we received a guide who led us right to the graveyard. I must say that graveyard is probably the wrong term for what we were in. It was a spacious structure with a high ceiling and an inner courtyard. All over the walls were frescoes and in the ground were large, distinct rectangles of marble. It turns out that the Pisans were burying some of their dead in sarcophagi and others in the ground where they were marked by those large marble slabs. Each slab had some sort of inscription on it detailing who was there, and there were a ton of inscriptions all over the place. Pretty creepy…

Next came the baptistry. To be blunt, it was rather empty. It had two floors but we spent most of the time on the first floor. At one point an employee came along and gave us a demonstration of the acoustics. Every note she sung reverberated all over the building, so I’d rate it’s acoustics as super impressive. Outside the door and across some grass was the basilica. Its exterior looked like a large basilica and so did its interior. Compared to Rome’s basilicas, this was rather unimpressive to us, so it’s clear we’ve been spoiled. We took some time to meander and soon enough it was time to climb the tower.

It’s pretty impressive in person

From a distance the tilt doesn’t look like much, but up close it’s very noticeable. The tower was constructed in a couple of phases spread out by around one hundred years. It’s actually not completely straight because during the second phase the engineers tried to make it appear more straight by slanting the new floors slightly. To their dismay, the tower sank more and those efforts were all for naught. So now the tower has a banana shape to it if you look closely. For a banana tower, it was an awfully long way to the top, but we bolted up it nonetheless. Going up and down was a challenge because of the slant. Some of the steps were easier but most were more difficult to ascend. At the top there was a fantastic view of Pisa and the nearby mountains.

The view from the top of the tower was pretty impressive

We were only allowed to stay up there a short amount of time so we headed down after a half an hour. Retracing our steps we hopped back onto the bus and motored on back to Florence to prepare for tomorrow. Coming up we have our tour of Sienna and a wine tasting in the evening. It should be a particularly good day for all! Have a good one everybody!

– Chris Apfeld

January 22, 2015 by