Description
The Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, in Piazza dei Miracoli, holds the originals of many works that you see outside as copies: the griffin above the Cathedral, the bronze door that escaped the fire, the statues of the Baptistery. It helps you understand what was really on the square, and what has been put out of the reach of time.
The route starts with the Door of San Ranieri by Bonanno Pisano, from around 1180, alone in the first room: it stood in the right transept of the Cathedral, and it is the only one that escaped the fire of 1595. Then come inlays, bas-reliefs and capitals of the 12th century, from the cathedral's facade.
The star is the Griffin of Pisa, a 12th-century Islamic bronze, the work of artists from Muslim Spain. For centuries it stayed on the Cathedral's apse: it almost certainly arrived as war booty, perhaps from the Balearic Islands.
In the same room are a bronze basin of Islamic origin, a Byzantine bone casket and a 10th-century Islamic capital that bears the signature of Fath, a sculptor who also worked on the Mosque of Córdoba.
Then there are the statues by Nicola and Giovanni Pisano, which stayed on top of the Baptistery until 1846. Up close they look roughly sketched, and that's normal: they were carved to be seen from afar and from below. Beside them, Giovanni Pisano's "gradule", a frieze of animals and human heads that ran around the cathedral.
Three rooms are devoted to Giovanni Pisano: the Madonna of the Colloquy, all in the gaze between mother and son, the Madonna and Child of the Baptistery and the one of Henry VII, in which Pisa is a crowned woman nursing two children. Upstairs are the Ivory Madonna of 1298 and the Burgundian Crucifix.
The museum was born in 1986 in a building with many lives: house of the cathedral canons, seminary, academy of fine arts, convent. After years of closure, it reopened renovated in 2019. From the cloister you can see the Tower. In the last rooms you will also find the Renaissance inlays of the cathedral choir and the funerary goods of Emperor Henry VII.
Don't miss
• The Griffin of Pisa.
• The Door of San Ranieri.
• Giovanni Pisano's statues.
• The Ivory Madonna.
• The Burgundian Crucifix.
Did you know?
• The Burgundian Crucifix, in wood, is from the 12th century and is a rare French work in Italy.
• Among the works on display there is also a model of the Tower in Volterra alabaster, at a scale of 1 to 25, made in 2011.
The route starts with the Door of San Ranieri by Bonanno Pisano, from around 1180, alone in the first room: it stood in the right transept of the Cathedral, and it is the only one that escaped the fire of 1595. Then come inlays, bas-reliefs and capitals of the 12th century, from the cathedral's facade.
The star is the Griffin of Pisa, a 12th-century Islamic bronze, the work of artists from Muslim Spain. For centuries it stayed on the Cathedral's apse: it almost certainly arrived as war booty, perhaps from the Balearic Islands.
In the same room are a bronze basin of Islamic origin, a Byzantine bone casket and a 10th-century Islamic capital that bears the signature of Fath, a sculptor who also worked on the Mosque of Córdoba.
Then there are the statues by Nicola and Giovanni Pisano, which stayed on top of the Baptistery until 1846. Up close they look roughly sketched, and that's normal: they were carved to be seen from afar and from below. Beside them, Giovanni Pisano's "gradule", a frieze of animals and human heads that ran around the cathedral.
Three rooms are devoted to Giovanni Pisano: the Madonna of the Colloquy, all in the gaze between mother and son, the Madonna and Child of the Baptistery and the one of Henry VII, in which Pisa is a crowned woman nursing two children. Upstairs are the Ivory Madonna of 1298 and the Burgundian Crucifix.
The museum was born in 1986 in a building with many lives: house of the cathedral canons, seminary, academy of fine arts, convent. After years of closure, it reopened renovated in 2019. From the cloister you can see the Tower. In the last rooms you will also find the Renaissance inlays of the cathedral choir and the funerary goods of Emperor Henry VII.
Don't miss
• The Griffin of Pisa.
• The Door of San Ranieri.
• Giovanni Pisano's statues.
• The Ivory Madonna.
• The Burgundian Crucifix.
Did you know?
• The Burgundian Crucifix, in wood, is from the 12th century and is a rare French work in Italy.
• Among the works on display there is also a model of the Tower in Volterra alabaster, at a scale of 1 to 25, made in 2011.