Pisa, renowned throughout the world for its tower, an extraordinary monument that complements the tetralogy of the Piazza del Duomo, boasts a thousand-year-old history with the peak of its splendour at the time of the Maritime Republics. It is a trove of artistic treasures, including Romanesque and Gothic churches, while the squares and palaces complement the districts bordered by the Arno river and ancient roads. The university, one of the major ones, has retained its supremacy thanks to its many faculties and the Scuola Normale Superiore located in Piazza dei Cavalieri. Those who visit Pisa discover not only art, history and culture, but natural habitats as well, where the Park of Migliarino-San Rossore, the Seaboard and Monte Pisano create a particularly evocative scenery.

The ancient maritime tradition of the Republic of Pisa is revived every four years, since 1956, with the Historical Regatta, where vessels from the four ancient republics (Pisa, Venice, Genoa and Amalfi) compete with one another on the Arno.

But the city has other attractions to offer: the Baptistry, which faces the Duomo and, on the same square, the "Piazza dei Miracoli", you can find the Camposanto Monumentale, the monumental cemetery, which is 130 metres long. It overlooks the square with 43 blind arches. To the right of the Camposanto is the Cathedral, an absolute masterpiece of Pisan Romanesque architecture, whose construction began in 1063. This huge building is completely covered in marble. And here is the famous Leaning Tower, 56 metres tall.

In the Middle Ages, the Piazza dei Cavalieri, of a round shape, was the political and civil centre of Pisa. Bordering the square, is the beautiful palace of the Scuola Normale Superiore, the tower of Count Ugolino, mentioned in Dante's Divine Comedy, and the Church of Santo Stefano dei Cavalieri.

Dante and Pisa:

A Ghibelline city in Tuscany, its political, social and cultural events are closely tied to the history of Florence, and thus to Dante.

Pisa appears in the Divine Comedy especially because of the famous story of Ugolino della Gherardesca and his children and grandchildren, whose tragic death causes the poet to go into a violent rant against the city, calling it the "new Thebes" (verse 89), and makes him pray for a sort of natural disaster, with the islands moving toward the mouth of the Arno to cause a terrible massacre: “muovasi la Capraia e la Gorgona, / e faccian siepe ad Arno in su la foce, / sì ch'elli annieghi in te ogne persona!" (verses 82-84). He judges the people of Pisa to be "volpi sì piene di froda, / che non temono ingegno che le occupi " (Purgatorio, Canto XIV, verses 53-54).

Dante does not tell us much about the city, its port, palaces, streets, beautiful churches, except a mention of the Muda Tower where count Ugolino was locked with his family. Moreover, there is no evidence in the poem or his minor works that Dante stayed in Pisa, even though it's hard to rule it out. Very likely, the poet was in Pisa in the wake of Henry VII in 1312: this theory is indirectly confirmed by a passage by Petrarch. According to some historians, it was in Pisa that he wrote an important work, from a poetic and cultural point of view: the De Monarchia. Of the main characters involved in the internal affairs of the city, Dante remembers, in addition to Ugolino, the Archbishop Ruggieri, the Gualandi, the Sismondi, the Lanfranchi, also Ugolino Visconti, or "Nin gentile", gentle Nino (Purgatorio, Canto VIII, verse 53), judge of the Sardinian district of Gallura and, for a brief time, associated with Count Ugolino in the government of Pisa. The affectionate friendship the poet shows toward Nino suggests that their acquaintance was not a superficial one. From the poet's death (1321) to the first half of the 15th century, Pisa, together with Bologna and a few other cities, was an extremely important centre for the reverence and study of Dante.