Description
Palazzo Agostini, also called the palace of the Ussero or Palazzo Rosso, is one of the most scenic palaces on Pisa's riverfront: a 14th-century Gothic façade entirely in reddish brick, with a historic café on the ground floor.
The Astajo family built it in the first half of the 14th century by joining two tower-houses. Instead of stone they chose terracotta: decorated tiles with coats of arms, leaves and faces cover five brick pilasters that rise from the portico to the roof.
On the upper floors open two- and three-light windows with marble colonnettes. The façade leans a little to the right, from the settling of the ground, like the Tower. The portico on the riverfront has depressed arches and vaults with the archivolts decorated in relief.
It is one of the main examples of civic Gothic in Tuscany. On the façade, besides the Agostini coat of arms, appear those of the families that died out in theirs. On the highest floor there was an open loggia, later closed, described by John Ruskin. The roof at the top is an addition from the restoration of 1895.
The present name comes from the Agostini, Pisan silk merchants, who bought it in 1496. Before that it had passed through Florentine hands: in 1495 a Florentine cannonball struck "the house of the Astai," as the chronicler Giovanni Portoveneri tells.
On the ground floor is the Caffè dell'Ussero, opened in 1775. The name comes from "ussero," a Tuscan variant of hussar. In 1839 it hosted the first Congress of Italian Scientists, and the walls are covered with mementos of those who stopped here.
Remembered among its regulars are Carducci, Giusti, Marinetti, Ezra Pound, Indro Montanelli and Tiziano Terzani. In 1944 the café was requisitioned by the American armed forces and reopened the following year as "Usserino" in another location.
The ground floor also housed the Cinema Lumière, from 1899 until it closed in 2011: the screenings began in the café's billiard room.
The Astajo family built it in the first half of the 14th century by joining two tower-houses. Instead of stone they chose terracotta: decorated tiles with coats of arms, leaves and faces cover five brick pilasters that rise from the portico to the roof.
On the upper floors open two- and three-light windows with marble colonnettes. The façade leans a little to the right, from the settling of the ground, like the Tower. The portico on the riverfront has depressed arches and vaults with the archivolts decorated in relief.
It is one of the main examples of civic Gothic in Tuscany. On the façade, besides the Agostini coat of arms, appear those of the families that died out in theirs. On the highest floor there was an open loggia, later closed, described by John Ruskin. The roof at the top is an addition from the restoration of 1895.
The present name comes from the Agostini, Pisan silk merchants, who bought it in 1496. Before that it had passed through Florentine hands: in 1495 a Florentine cannonball struck "the house of the Astai," as the chronicler Giovanni Portoveneri tells.
On the ground floor is the Caffè dell'Ussero, opened in 1775. The name comes from "ussero," a Tuscan variant of hussar. In 1839 it hosted the first Congress of Italian Scientists, and the walls are covered with mementos of those who stopped here.
Remembered among its regulars are Carducci, Giusti, Marinetti, Ezra Pound, Indro Montanelli and Tiziano Terzani. In 1944 the café was requisitioned by the American armed forces and reopened the following year as "Usserino" in another location.
The ground floor also housed the Cinema Lumière, from 1899 until it closed in 2011: the screenings began in the café's billiard room.