Description
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a small octagonal church between via San Martino and the Lungarno, in the heart of Pisa. With its pyramid roof and stone walls it looks like a little castle, but it is not a Templar building.
It belonged to the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, then to the Knights of Malta. Many mistake it for a Templar church, but that is an error.
Inside, eight limestone pillars support pointed arches and a tall windowed drum, topped by a pyramid-shaped spire of exposed brick. An ambulatory, also octagonal, runs around it: just look up to see how it is built.
Don't miss the tombstone of Maria Mancini, niece of Cardinal Mazarin and favorite of the Sun King, Louis XIV. A little further on is the well with the bucket believed to have belonged to Saint Ubaldesca, who drew water there for pilgrims.
The portals are interesting too, each in a different style, with decorations of leaves and heads of lions or bulls carved in marble. There is also the saint's reliquary bust, from the fifteenth century, and a painting on panel, a Madonna and Child, of the same century.
The name comes from the crusade led by the Archbishop of Pisa, Daibert. On their return the Pisans wanted a building that would be a church, hospital, hostel and monastery all at once: the interior reproduces the Holy Sepulchre, while the eight-sided exterior recalls the Mosque of Omar, which was then believed to be Solomon's Temple.
A plaque on the bell tower says the author was Diotisalvi, the architect of the Baptistery. Scholars doubt it, though, not least because the inscription is on the bell tower and not on the church. Whether it was built before or after the Baptistery remains open.
In the nineteenth century a restoration removed the sixteenth-century portico and the Baroque furnishings and brought back to light the original floor, more than a meter below the level of the square. The construction is so precise that the whole building fits in a cube of about 24 meters, or 41 braccia.
It belonged to the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, then to the Knights of Malta. Many mistake it for a Templar church, but that is an error.
Inside, eight limestone pillars support pointed arches and a tall windowed drum, topped by a pyramid-shaped spire of exposed brick. An ambulatory, also octagonal, runs around it: just look up to see how it is built.
Don't miss the tombstone of Maria Mancini, niece of Cardinal Mazarin and favorite of the Sun King, Louis XIV. A little further on is the well with the bucket believed to have belonged to Saint Ubaldesca, who drew water there for pilgrims.
The portals are interesting too, each in a different style, with decorations of leaves and heads of lions or bulls carved in marble. There is also the saint's reliquary bust, from the fifteenth century, and a painting on panel, a Madonna and Child, of the same century.
The name comes from the crusade led by the Archbishop of Pisa, Daibert. On their return the Pisans wanted a building that would be a church, hospital, hostel and monastery all at once: the interior reproduces the Holy Sepulchre, while the eight-sided exterior recalls the Mosque of Omar, which was then believed to be Solomon's Temple.
A plaque on the bell tower says the author was Diotisalvi, the architect of the Baptistery. Scholars doubt it, though, not least because the inscription is on the bell tower and not on the church. Whether it was built before or after the Baptistery remains open.
In the nineteenth century a restoration removed the sixteenth-century portico and the Baroque furnishings and brought back to light the original floor, more than a meter below the level of the square. The construction is so precise that the whole building fits in a cube of about 24 meters, or 41 braccia.