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The
Luminara
of Saint Ranieri
June 16
2004
Every
year on the night of the 16th of June the enchantment of the Illuminations
of Saint Ranieri is renewed on the streets running along the river Arno (the
so-called Lungarni). In fact, following an ancient tradition the Pisans
celebrate their patron saint, St. Ranieri, of the following day. There
are about seventy-thousand wax candles which at every edition are meticulously
set in smooth and white glasses and fixed then onto wooden white-painted frames,
modelled in such a way as to exalt the outline of the palaces, of the bridges,
of the churches and of the towers reflecting on the river.
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The exceptional
appendix to this scenery is the leaning tower, enlightened in the same old
fashion with oil lamps, set also on the
crenulations
of the city walls in
the area encircling the Piazza dei Miracoli. After
the lighting, because of the reverberation of the myriad of trembling lights on
the Arno and because of the candles that are left floating on its waters, the
event offers the visitor a unique feeling impossible to describe thanks to the
ecstatic enchantment that since antiquity makes the Pisan nights of the 16th
June magic. On
the 25th of March 1688, the urn containing the body of Ranieri degli
Scaccieri,
patron saint of the city who died as a saint in 1161, was placed inside the
chapel dedicated to the Crowned Virgin in the Cathedral of Pisa. Cosimo III
Medici asked that the old urn containing the relic was changed with a more
modern and richer one. |
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The
translation of the urn was the occasion for a memorable feast, from which,
following the tradition, started the three-year illuminations of Pisa, first
called Illumination and that then during the nineteenth century took the
name of "Luminara".
The
idea of celebrating the feast by enlightening the town with oil lamps was still
not conceived at that time, but it was an ancient habit gradually consolidated
during particularly solemn and joyful events having nothing to share with the
worship of the patron saint. There is clear evidence of this tradition: on the
14th of June 1662 (before the translation of Saint Ranieri’s body)
the Illumination was made in honour of Marguerite Louise, princess of Orléans
and wife of Cosimo II, who passed through Pisa on her way to Florence. There is
also evidence of some previous editions such as the one organised in honour of
Victoria della Rovere on occasion of the night feast for the carnival in 1539.
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Started
as illuminations of the windows of the houses during parades or procession, the Luminara,
following the new scenographical fancy of the time, in the XVIII century it
became a free enlightened architecture placed on buildings, of which
progressively they redesigned the outline creating strange shapes that
transformed the city and especially the banks along the river. In some cases the
illuminations still underlined the real structure of the buildings. The
history of the Luminara constantly followed the one of the city. It was
abolished in 1867, then restored in 1937 on occasion of the resumption of the Gioco
del Ponte and then suspended during the Second World War. In 1952 the Luminara
of Saint Ranieri was resumed and the tradition lasted until 1966.
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In November of
the same year the violence of the floods of the river Arno caused the collapse
of the Solferino bridge and of long stretches of the banks along the river. The Luminara
was then suspended again, and finally revived in June 1969.
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Written
by Ufficio Turismo Comune di Pisa
Translation
by Maria Vanzini
Photographs
by Renato Sandrini |
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