- Camposanto Monumentale
The Camposanto Monumentale ("monumental cemetery") lies at the northern edge of the Square of Miracles in
Pisa ,Italy ."Camposanto" can be literally translated as "holy field", because it is said to have been built around a shipload of sacred soil from
Golgotha , brought back to Pisa from theFourth Crusade byUbaldo de' Lanfranchi ,archbishop of Pisa in the 12th century. A legend claims that bodies buried in that ground will rot in just 24 hours.The burial ground lies over the ruins of the oldbaptistery of the church of Santa Reparata, the church that once stood where the cathedral now stands.The term "monumental" serves to differentiate it from the later-established urban cemetery in Pisa. It is also called camposanto vecchio ("old cemetery").History
The Camposanto Monumentale is a walled
cemetery , which many claim is the most beautiful cemetery in the world.fact|date=September 2008The building itself is the fourth and last one to be raised in the Square of Miracles. It dates from a century after the bringing of the soil from Golgotha, and was erected over the earlier burial ground.The building of this huge, oblong Gothic cloister was begun in
1278 by the architectGiovanni di Simone . He died in 1284 when Pisa suffered a defeat in the navalbattle of Meloria against theGenoa ns. The cemetery was only completed in1464 .It seems that the building was not meant to be a real cemetery, but a church called "Santissima Trinità" (Most
Holy Trinity ), but the project changed during the construction. However we know that the original part was the western one (and this should be, at least for a while, the mentioned church), and all the eastern part was the last to be made and closing the structure.Building
The outer wall is composed of 43 blind arches. There are two doorways. The one on the right is crowned by a gracious Gothic tabernacle. It contains the
Virgin Mary with Child, surrounded by four saints. It is the work from the second half of the 14th century by a follower ofGiovanni Pisano . This was the original entrance door. Most of the tombs are under the arcades, although a few are on the central lawn. The inner court is surrounded by elaborate round arches with slendermullion s and plurilobedtracery .The cemetery has three chapels. The oldest ones are the chapel Ammannati (1360) and takes its name from the tomb of
Ligo Ammannati , a teacher in theUniversity of Pisa ; and the chapel Aulla, were there is an altar made byGiovanni della Robbia in 1518. In this chapel we can see also the original lamp thatGalileo Galilei saw, in his time, inside the cathedral and that was shortly replaced by the bigger one we can see now. The last chapel was "Dal Pozzo", wanted byarchbishop of Pisa Carlo Antonio Dal Pozzo in 1594; it has an altar dedicated toSt Girolamo and a littledome .arcophagi
The Camposanto contained a huge collection of Roman sarcophagi, but there are only 84 left together with a collection of
Roman andEtruscan sculptures and urns, now in the Museum of the vestry board. The sarcophagi were initially all around the cathedral, often attached to the building itself. That until the cemetery was built, then they were collected in the middle all over the meadow.Carlo Lasinio , in the years he was thecurator of the Camposanto, collected many other ancient relics that were spread in Pisa to make a sort ofarcheological museum inside the cemetery. Nowadays the sarcophagi are inside the galleries, near the walls.Frescoes
The walls were once covered in
fresco es; the first were applied in 1360, the last about three centuries later. The first was theCrucifixion byFrancesco Traini , in the south western side. Then, continuing to right, in the southern side, the realistics "Last judgement", "The hell", "The Triumph of Death" and the "Anacoreti nella Tebaide", the work ofBuonamico Buffalmacco . The cycle of frescoes continues with the "Stories of the Old Testament" byBenozzo Gozzoli (15th century) that were situated in the north gallery, while in the south arcade were the "Stories of Pisan Saints", byAndrea Bonaiuti , Antonio Veneziano andSpinello Aretino (between 1377 and 1391), and the "Stories of Job", byTaddeo Gaddi (end of 14th century). In the same time, in the north gallery were the "Stories of the Genesis" byPiero di Puccio .Onn 27 July 1944, incidentally from an Allied raid, a bomb fragment started a fire. Due to all the water tanks being controlled, the fire could not be put out in time, and it burnt the wooden rafters and melted the lead of the roof. The destruction of the roof severely damaged everything inside the cemetery, destroying most of the sculptures and sarcophagi and compromising all the frescoes.
After
World War II , restoration works begun, the roof was restored as closely as possible to its pre-war appearance and the frescoes were separated from the walls to be restored and displayed elsewhere.Once they the frescoes had been removed, the preliminary drawings, called "sinopie" were also removed. Those under-drawings were separated using the same technique of the frescoes and now they are in the Museum of the sinopie, on the opposite side of the Square.Nowadays, the restored frescoes that still exist are gradually being transferred to their original locations in the cemetery, inside the cemetery, to restore the Camposanto's pre-war appearance.
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