Pisa’s Miracles

Poet Gabriele D’Annunzio (1910) called the area around Pisa’s Duomo  (cathedral), a “prato dei miracoli”  (“a field of miracles”).

You know you’re gazing on miracles if you stroll around that piazza  in the silence of a February night:

…and the magic peaks if you look up and see the hazy halo of a moon over the 11th-century Baptistery:

The white Carrara marble of all the “miracles” stands out in stark contrast to the black night-sky background.

“A temple of white marble like snow” is how the 11th-century cathedral architect, Buscheto di Giovanni Giudice, described the masterpiece he constructed. His words are on a plaque on the facade, near his funerary monument.

And the “lean” of the famed 12th-century belltower seems more accentuated against the midnight-black background:

A night-time experience of the Tower, Baptistery and Duomo instills a contemplative, serene solemnity.

Daytime brings grins.  I watched the Chinese tourists playing with that “lean” in a plethora of photos:

…and then I saw two laughing young Italian women accepting an empty ice-cream cone from a departing Chinese tourist.  They’d seen how the Chinese visitors use those empty cones to photograph the Torre as if it were the gelato topping the cone.

Giggling, the young Italians did the same. I wish I could have nabbed a better photo of their gelato alla Torre di Pisa:

But what a pleasure to see their fun. Ah the magic of Pisa in February.

Click here to read about a favorite spot in Pisa