Description
The church of San Nicola sits in the heart of Pisa, on via Santa Maria, a short walk from Palazzo Reale. It is a Romanesque church with an inlaid façade and an octagonal bell tower, the most distinctive in the city after the Leaning Tower.
The bell tower is an octagonal prism with blind arcades, lozenges and a hexagonal bell chamber ringed by a gallery of small arches. It leans slightly and is polychrome: pale verrucano stone, dark stone from Livorno, white marble, granite from Elba.
The surprise is the spiral staircase inside. Unlike the one in the Tower, it is not enclosed between two walls: it winds freely around a gallery of small arches and slender columns. Vasari cited it as the model for the Pozzo di San Patrizio in Orvieto.
Who designed it? Vasari credited Nicola Pisano, but the attribution is uncertain. Some date the bell tower to 1170 and assign it to Diotisalvi, others place it between 1230 and 1250.
The façade is Pisan Romanesque, with pilasters, blind arches, lozenges and 12th-century inlay. According to one study, the circles of the inlay in a lunette follow the Fibonacci sequence: a professor of petrology at the University of Pisa is said to have noticed it.
Inside, in the church renovated in the 17th century, you will find paintings and sculptures of the 14th and 15th centuries: the Madonna and Child by Francesco Traini, the panel Saint Nicholas Saves Pisa from the Plague, the Crucifix by Giovanni Pisano and the Madonna by Nino Pisano. There is also a large organ with three keyboards.
The church is mentioned from 1097, together with its convent. The Augustinians enlarged it between the end of the 13th century and 1313. Even today a covered passage, on arches, crosses the street to the Palazzo delle Vedove.
Some women of the Medici household lived there. Thanks to that passage they could go to Mass without setting foot in the street.
The bell tower is an octagonal prism with blind arcades, lozenges and a hexagonal bell chamber ringed by a gallery of small arches. It leans slightly and is polychrome: pale verrucano stone, dark stone from Livorno, white marble, granite from Elba.
The surprise is the spiral staircase inside. Unlike the one in the Tower, it is not enclosed between two walls: it winds freely around a gallery of small arches and slender columns. Vasari cited it as the model for the Pozzo di San Patrizio in Orvieto.
Who designed it? Vasari credited Nicola Pisano, but the attribution is uncertain. Some date the bell tower to 1170 and assign it to Diotisalvi, others place it between 1230 and 1250.
The façade is Pisan Romanesque, with pilasters, blind arches, lozenges and 12th-century inlay. According to one study, the circles of the inlay in a lunette follow the Fibonacci sequence: a professor of petrology at the University of Pisa is said to have noticed it.
Inside, in the church renovated in the 17th century, you will find paintings and sculptures of the 14th and 15th centuries: the Madonna and Child by Francesco Traini, the panel Saint Nicholas Saves Pisa from the Plague, the Crucifix by Giovanni Pisano and the Madonna by Nino Pisano. There is also a large organ with three keyboards.
The church is mentioned from 1097, together with its convent. The Augustinians enlarged it between the end of the 13th century and 1313. Even today a covered passage, on arches, crosses the street to the Palazzo delle Vedove.
Some women of the Medici household lived there. Thanks to that passage they could go to Mass without setting foot in the street.