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Pisa da
Visitare
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The
history of Pisa
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The subsequent signoria of Piero
Gambacorti seemed to inaugurate a period of relative
peace and prosperity but his treacherous assassination
(21.10.1392) by hired killers instigated by the Visconti,
handed Pisa over the lords of Milan. In 1405, with base
bargaining, they traded Pisa off to the Florentines for
Money. The indignation and fierce resistance of the
Pisans was weakened by a series of negative events: in
the end the city had to surrender after a siege. This
episode (09.10.1406) marked the irreversible fall of the
glorious Maritime Republic. The subsequent advent of the
French king Charles VIII aroused new hopes of
independence in the city but the Florentines hastened to
gather under the walls of the invincible rival and once
more besieged it together with their allies. The
indomitable resistance of the Pisans was so strong the
Florentines even though of deviating the course of the
Arno and called Leonardo da Vinci. But the idea remained
on paper for Pisa, exhausted by famine, had to accept the
Florentine signoria (20.10.1509). The Medici government
of Cosimo I resulted in a reinassance in the city:
university activity was rationalized and augmented,
various public offices were organized, and, most
important, the Order of the Knights of St. Stephen
was instituted (1561), bringing new lymph to the Pisan
maritime traditions, and taking part in the epic naval
encounter of Lepanto (07.10.1571). In that circumstance
the Christian fleet, the expression of a coalition of
European powers (the papacy and Spain, Venice and the
House of Savoy and still others), under the leadership of
Don Juan of Austria, assisted by Gian Andrea Doria,
Marcantonio Colonna, Ettore Spinola and |
| Sebastiano Veniero,
Wiped out the maritime power of the Ottoman Turks
capitained by Mehemet Ali. |
| Subsequent Medici
rulers archieved important public works, such as the
Aqueduct of Asciano (1601) and the Canal of the Navicelli
- between Pisa and Livorno (1603). In the early 1630s a
fierce plague raged through the city. With the advent of
the Lorraine government which obtained the sovereignty of
the Granduchy of Tuscany in 1738, as established
by the treaty of Vienna, the rationalization of the
cultural institutions began (the Scuola Normale
was once more opened, 1847). The epic of Risorgimento
also involved the citizens of Pisa: on the unforgettable
day of Curtatone and Montanara (28.05.1848) the
volunteers and the university students, who had cut off
the tips of their university caps in order to aim their
guns better, wrote one of the most glowing pages of the
first war of independence. The year 1860 marked the
plebiscite adhesion to the Kingdom of Italy: two years
later Pisa bestowed a warm tribute on |
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| Garibaldi
who had been wounded on the Aspromonte. The most recent
history of the city includes the devastating destruction
of World War II and the barbarous episode of Kindu (ex
Belgian Congo) where thirteen pilots of the 46th
Air Brigade, on a humanitarian mission under the aegis of
the United Nations, were massacred (11.11.1961). Five
years later a disastrous flood of the Arno resulted in
the collapse of the Ponte Solferino and the partial
destruction of the Lungarno Pacinotti. |
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