The proposal was presented today to open up places that are not museumed and partly difficult to access in a structured way and teach how to read a complex space full of history. Thanks to the site piazzadeicavalieri.sns.it it is possible to book free visits for 5 evocative itineraries curated by students and researchers of the School.
Pisa, 18 June 2024. In the 1288 in Pisa in Piazza delle Sette Vie, Today Knights’ Square, the count Ugolino della Gherardesca vendefeated by Archbishop Ruggieri’s Ghibellines And incarcerated in Tower of Hunger, as he says Dante In the Canto XXXIII of Inferno. This was always the theater in which, between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, paraded annually the procession of Feast of the AssumptionAnd here, he was probably also held in captivity a lion donated in 1312 from the Municipality of Pisa to the emperor Henry VII on the occasion dhis visit to the city. Between the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century the square hosted the ceremonies of Knights of Saint Stephen and gods Doctors. In the 1683, in the church of Santo Stefano, the relics of the Holy Pope and martyr were transferred. During the long twentieth century Piazza dei Cavalieri was the place of demonstrations of the fascist regime in the 1920s and of student riots in the 1960s and 1970s. In 2019 the square was also transformed into the set of the fiction The Brilliant Friend.
This central place in life therevile, political, religious and cultural dthe Pisa, In the 1562 was transformed in a “mannerist stage”by will of Cosimo I de‘ Doctorswho with foresight entrusted itor the project to the great architect and humanist Giorgio Vasariof which this year the 450 years since his death.
More than eight centuries of history are therefore concentrated and stratified within the perimeter of Knights’ Square, between the buildings that overlook it and the streets that branch out from there. Heart of Pisan life since the Middle Ages – but also the scene of its bloodiest events and home, since 1846, of the Scuola Normale Superiore – from the late thirteenth century to today the square has hosted battles, festivals, processions and demonstrations and has been told by travelers and illustrious witnesses who reported it in their writings.
From these premises an ambitious project took shape study, knowledge and valorisation project of the historical and artistic heritage of Piazza dei Cavalieri, born from close collaboration between Superior Normal School And Pisa Foundation with the purpose of let know to the public this little-known treasure and open in a structured way its buildings: Palazzo della Carovana, Santo Stefano dei Cavalieri, Palazzo della Canonica, Palazzo dei Dodici, Palazzo dell’Orologio, San Rocco.
Started in January 2022, the project will end in 2025 and includes – demonstrating the Normale’s commitment to promoting research – the coverage of four years of research grants, as well as various contracts for scientific collaborations and training internships for students. They contributed to its creation several teachers of the Normale, under the scientific responsibility of the professor Lucia Simonato. Furthermore, important international scholars were also involved in the research.
Thanks to numerous interventions by restoration and to the constant protection of the Normal, exercised through a powerful research and updating work, Piazza dei Cavalieri and its buildings they are today ready to show themselves and welcome all those interested in discovering this cultural heritage.
«The Scuola Normale Superiore has linked its history to Piazza dei Cavalieri since 1846, when it was moved to the Palazzo della Carovana», says the Prof. Luigi Ambrosio, Director of the Normalewho adds: «Since that year, other buildings in this beautiful urban area have come into use by the Normale, which has taken every care to enhance them. An example of this is the Palazzo dell’Orologio, where between the end of the Seventies and the early Eighties the infamous Tower of Fame of Dante’s memory was brought back into view. These actions include the important initiative that we are presenting today: a complex project, not only of research, but also of scientific dissemination, to promote knowledge and open the Normale to an unprecedented dialogue with the community».
«The project to enhance the Piazza dei Cavalieri immediately seemed extremely interesting to us, in the perspective of rediscovering the importance of a central place in Pisa, from an urban planning point of view and for the history of the city» explains Stefano Del Corso, President of the Pisa Foundation «The hope is that the project, thanks also to its digital characterization, will shed new light on one of the most beautiful squares in Pisa; and that the site created allows for greater knowledge of it to the point of being able to increasingly include the square in the itineraries of visitors arriving in Pisa. Furthermore, this objective is linked to the hope of a rapid intervention on the Church of the Knights, currently closed: intervention – on this irreplaceable integral part of the square – for which the Pisa Foundation, in compliance with the roles and responsibilities, has already surrender and returns to making itself fully available».
Now citizens have the opportunity to enter into Vasari’s architecture today headquarters of the Normale, which not only decides to open its doors but to enter into dialogue with the public, accompanied inside the buildings by researchers, students and doctoral candidates: a peculiar choice of scientific publication which transmits in “first person” and free of charge the knowledge acquired during the most recent research. There are many proposed routesin constant updating and renewal, dedicated to individual or thematic buildingswhich will show how these places are true universes of knowledge.
The professor Lucia Simonatoscientific director of the project, underlines the importance of describing such a stratified square and the active participation of the community: «Telling a story about a square is not easy. Like a living organism, it continues to change both in the history of its buildings and in the events it hosts and make up its history. In the Project, the dual objective was to understand this complexity (with new research, in publications) and communicate it in an accessible way (with high-level scientific dissemination, on the site). We therefore did not limit ourselves to investigating Piazza dei Cavalieri only for its extraordinary architectural and artistic riches, but we also tried to enhance the experiential aspect, studying how life took place within it over the centuries and who were the protagonists who animated it. This new approach has certainly enriched our scientific research with new questions, but has also allowed us to create a bridge between today’s perception (by the city community and tourists) and the historical perception of the square, making its knowledge more fascinating and immersive».
Alongside the access routes, the project made possible the construction of piazzadeicavalieri.sns.it a site created ad hocand soon also accessible in English, which collects all the information relating to the history of the places and the characters who lived there. Dante, Vasari, Cosimo de Mediciinsights on buildings and monuments, from Clock Palace to that of the Twelvethe Church of San Rocco or the Monument of Ulisse Diniall rigorously reread and updated.
The Knights Square Project demonstrates how much collaboration between institutions can activate quality cultural policiescapable of giving back to the community an important heritage that was previously difficult to access, opening up new perspectives of reading and understanding a place so rich in history and meaning.
With this initiative, the Superior Normal School reiterates his centuries-old vocation not only to scientific investigation, but also to the cultural valorization and conservation of the artistic-architectural heritage renewing your self-image from a place of research for a few to a space open to the involvement of an increasingly wider public.
