PAINTING IN ITALY / TUSCANY / PISA

Certainly if you’re an artist who enjoys painting architecture, Pisa should not be missed. The Campo dei Miracoli (Field of Miracles) is as spectacular today as it must have been to medieval visitors. The Duomo, Bell Tower, and Baptistery are set within a vast, meticulously manicured lawn that entices artists to set up and spend a few hours painting. If you’re a true-to-life, detailed artist, don’t get frustrated if what you see doesn’t jive in your over-analytical brain; don’t accuse your t-square of playing tricks on you; and don’t blame that second glass of wine you drank at lunch: not only does the Leaning Tower “lean,” but the Baptistery is inclined out of the vertical and the façade of the Duomo is also a few degrees out of true.
Before you leave the Campo dei Miracoli, you must take time to visit each of these magnificent buildings and definitely take time to visit Camposanto, which Ruskin described as one of the three most precious buildings in Italy, along with the Sistine Chapel and the Scuola di San Rocco in Venice. It wasn’t its tombs but rather its frescos that he praised. Unfortunately, in July of 1944, Allied planes dropped incendiary bombs that set the roof on fire and drenched the 2000 square meters of frescos in a river of molten lead. Fortunately, a few patches of the magnificent frescos remain, including works by Maestro del Trionfo della Morte (Master of the Triumph of Death); which have been detached from the wall and put on exhibit in a room opposite the entrance. Also at the entrance is a photographic display of the Camposanto before the bombing.
On the south side of the Campo, sandwiched between the tourist stalls, you’ll find the Museo delle Sinopie. I love this high-tech museum. After the Allies bombed the Camposanto, the building’s restorers removed its sinopie, the monochrome sketches for the frescos. These great plaster plates are now hung from the walls of the Museo delle Sinopie, where you have the opportunity to inspect up close the painter’s preliminary ideas.
Don’t leave Pisa until you’ve visited and sketched all “three” leaning towers. The 2nd leaning tower is at the end of Via Santa Maria. It’s the 13th century campanile of San Nicola. The base is cylindrical and changes into an octagon and then a hexagon. Inside, take a peek at the paintings by Nino and Giovanni Pisano. You can get to the 3rd leaning tower, the campanile of San Michele dei Scalzi, by walking along the riverbank upstream from Ponte di Mezzo. Everything in this building is severely out of kilter: the columns in the nave tilt this way and that, the windows in the apse are every which way but loose, and the walls set up a dizzy contrast to the tilt of the tower.
After your brain has maxed out on the crooked, tilted, and leaning don't despair, like Florence, Pisa has its Lungarno that boasts a splendid line of riverside palaces that will please every “t-square” enthusiast.
BUON VIAGGIO!