Italy Guide
Tuscany
The Camposanto
Opening time: daily: March 9am–6pm; April– Sept 8am–8pm; Oct 9am–7pm; Nov– Feb 10am–5pm
Price: €5
According to legend the Camposanto cemetery was established when Pisan knights on the Fourth Crusade in 1203 brought back a cargo of soil back to Pisa from the hill of Golgotha, in order that eminent Pisans might be buried in holy earth. The building enclosing this sanctified site was completed almost a in later and takes the form of an enormous Gothic cloister. However, when Ruskin described the Camposanto as one of the most precious buildings in Italy, it was the frescoes that he was praising. Paintings once covered over two thousand square metres of cloister wall, but now the brickwork is mostly bare: incendiary bombs dropped by Allied planes on July 27, 1944, set the roofing on fire and drenched the frescoes in molten lead. The most important survivor is the remarkable Triumph of Death cycle, now displayed in a room attached to the cloister.