Pisa Museo Aperto

Location(s)

Recent archaeological excavations brought to light the remains of a Roman villa of the early imperial age (the age of August, end of the 1st century B.C.) in the site of the actual Dante Square.
The presence of this villa proves that this part of the city, next to the river, hab been inhabited since the ancient times.
Besides, traces of a road built during the Middle Ages have been discovered. That road was constructed between the 8th and the 10th century and repaved at least three times from the early 11th century to the second half of the 13th. Close to the road there was the church of St. Isidore, built on two levels: an open loggia at the groundfloor and a worship room on the upperfloor. The church had also a burial area. Close to the church the foudations of two private houses were discovered, probably built before 1000 a.D.

The road, the church and the houses testify that this area of Pisa was inhabited during the Middle Ages and particularly from the 11th century onwards, when the city experienced an exceptional economic and demographic growth due to the maritime and commercial expansion in the Mediterranean.

Nevertheless, it must be stressed that the square itself was a novelty introduced in the 14th century and even more in the next, during the time of Lorenzo il Magnifico, when, in the second half of the 15th century, the lord of Florence ordered to transfer in that area of the city the new “Studio Pisano”, that is the University College. Until the 14th century the square practically non existed, the site being occupied by a large number of houses, towers and tower-houses, subsequently transformed into palaces during the Renaissance and the Modern Era.
In 1339 the Commune expropriated several houses near the parish of St. Ilarius in order to open a new Grain Market Square, surrounded by porches, paved in bricks and housing twenty-two shops. The new square was to substitute the already existing one near St. Clement’s church, close to the Central Bridge, where the grain market traditionally took place. Both squares were owned by the “Opera del Duomo” (the Cathedral Institution), whose main incomes came from the wheat trade.
The square underwent a final transformation during the Florentine domination, both under Lorenzo il Magnifico and in the 16th century. The union of the Florentine and Pisan Colleges, both located in Pisa, brought to the erection of a palace specifically intended to house the University, called Palazzo della Sapienza (the Palace of Knowledge). Indeed this is one of the masterpieces of Renaissance architecture in Pisa, of the Brunelleschi type, together with the Spedale dei Trovatelli (the orphans’ hospital) and the Archbishop Palace.

In 1472 started the conversion of the square from wheat market to university seat. The works lasted from 1486 to 1494, when the buildings around the Pigs’ Square (today Piazza delle Vettovaglie) were bought, allowing the construction of a new, third Grain Market Square, ultimately transferred in that part of the city. In 1494 the groundfloor of the Palazzo della Sapienza was completed and so the University courses could start, although some parts of the building were still used as warehouses (for instance there was at least a storeroom for salt).

The Pisan rebellion against the Florentine dominion and the long war which followed caused a prolonged stop and the works could start again only in the following century. It was only in 1543 that the construction of the whole building was completed thanks to the intervention of duke Cosimo I Medici.