Pisa Culture

A student city that owns a wonder

Pisa's real identity is academic, and the gap between that and its reputation is the most interesting thing about the place. The university has taught since 1343, and alongside it the Scuola Normale Superiore and the Sant'Anna school give a city of under 100,000 people a concentration of research closer to Oxford or Heidelberg than to a Tuscan provincial capital. Galileo was born here and taught here.

The practical effect is a city with two populations that barely overlap. Term time fills the arcades of Borgo Stretto and the bars around Piazza delle Vettovaglie with students; the summer, when visitor numbers peak, is exactly when they are gone. A visitor in October meets a different Pisa from one in August, and the October version is the real one.

The maritime republic, and its absence

Pisa was one of the four great maritime republics — with Genoa, Amalfi and Venice — and the city still competes against the other three in the Regata delle Antiche Repubbliche Marinare, which rotates between them. But the sea itself is gone: the harbour silted up, Genoa destroyed what was left in 1290, and the coast is now ten kilometres away. Pisa is a maritime city with no port, and that absence explains why the Piazza del Duomo feels like the relic of a bigger place.

Giugno Pisano

The city's cultural life concentrates into one month. Giugno Pisano runs through June and is genuinely local rather than staged for visitors:

• The Luminara di San Ranieri on 16 June, when more than 100,000 lumini outline the facades, churches, towers and bridges along the Arno.
• The Palio remiero di San Ranieri on 17 June, a rowing race between four boats representing the old quarters, won by a crew member climbing a ten-metre pole to take a blue banner.
• The Gioco del Ponte on 27 June, a Renaissance costume procession followed by teams pushing a heavy cart along rails for control of the Ponte di Mezzo.

Food, and the river

The cooking is coastal Tuscan rather than inland: cecina, the chickpea flatbread sold by the slice, salt cod, and seafood from Livorno down the coast. The daily market at Piazza delle Vettovaglie, under its own arcades, is where that is traded, and in the evening the same square is the centre of student Pisa. The lungarni are where the city's palaces face, and the city reads properly only from the river.