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History
Pisa, in the past an Etruscan settlement and
subsequently a Roman Colony, and later sill, the ancient a proud Maritime
Republic, rises close to the Tirrenian Sea on the banks of the river Arno,
that flows through in the Middle Ages gave it its period of maximum
splendour: the numerous civilian and religious edifices, the squares, the
typical narrows alleys running perpendicular to the Arno, testify, in the
historic centre’s forma urbis, to a remarkable economic and political
stability.
Traces of the Roman and medieval settlements
were completely lost, partly because of bombing during the Second Word
War, but there are still ample stretches of the town walls, built between
1154 –1155 and the Mid – Fourteenth Century.
In the XI Century Pisa intensified trade in
the Mediterranean Sea, conquered Sardinia and the towns of Reggio
Calabria, Palermo, Bona and Al Mahdiya in Africa, and furthermore could
boast of many victories against the Muslim ships.
Oriented towards Ghibelline politics, Pisa
was the only free Commune in all of Tuscany to openly support the Swabian
sovereigns (Frederick I Barbarossa, Henry VI, Frederick II, Manfredi and
Corradino) and were thus in contrast with the Papacy, and excommunicated
in 1241 for having captured and consigned to the Emperor Frederick II a
few high – ranking priests on their way to Rome to take part in a
council.
The gradual decline of the city
was decreed by its rival Genoa with the defeat of Meloria in 1284 and
subsequently also by Florence. The loss of Sardinia and predominance over
the sea placed Pisa in a kind of isolation from which it only emerged
around 1500. |
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