Pisa Cathedral

Pisa began its cathedral in 1064 and consecrated it on 26 September 1118. Buscheto laid out a nave with four aisles under an elliptical dome; Rainaldo later lengthened the church and built the arcaded façade. The black-and-white banding and the Roman stones reused in the walls were a statement: Pisa saw itself as a second Rome.

Inside, granite columns from Elba line the nave under a 17th-century coffered ceiling. Giovanni Pisano's pulpit (1302–1310) is crowded with carved figures, and Cimabue's mosaic of St John the Evangelist (about 1302) fills part of the apse. The bronze lamp in the nave is known as Galileo's lamp, though it was hung after he is said to have timed a swinging lamp here, around 1583. Facing the Tower, the Porta di San Ranieri keeps Bonanno Pisano's 12th-century bronze panels, the only doors to survive the fire of 1595.