Campo Santo, Pisa. The Campo Santo, also known as Camposanto Monumentale or Camposanto Vecchio, is a historical edifice at the northern edge of the Cathedral Square in Pisa, Italy.
Campo Santo can be literally translated as holy field, because it is said to have been built around a shipload of sacred soil from Golgotha, brought back to Pisa from the Third Crusade by Ubaldo Lanfranchi, archbishop of Pisa in the 12th century. A legend claims that bodies buried in that ground will rot in just 24 hours.
The burial ground lies over the ruins of the old baptistery of the church of Santa Reparata, the church that once stood where the cathedral now stands. The term monumental serves to differentiate it from the later-established urban cemetery in Pisa.
The building was the fourth and last one to be raised in the Cathedral Square. It dates from a century after the bringing of the soil from Golgotha, and was erected over the earlier burial ground.
The construction of this huge, oblong Gothic cloister was begun in 1278 by the architect Giovanni di Simone. He died in 1284 when Pisa suffered a defeat in the naval battle of Meloria against the Genoans. The cemetery was only completed in 1464. It seems that the building was not meant to be a real cemetery, but a church called Santissima Triniti, but the project changed during the construction. However we know that the original part was the western one, and all
Campo Santo can be literally translated as holy field, because it is said to have been built around a shipload of sacred soil from Golgotha, brought back to Pisa from the Third Crusade by Ubaldo Lanfranchi, archbishop of Pisa in the 12th century. A legend claims that bodies buried in that ground will rot in just 24 hours.
The burial ground lies over the ruins of the old baptistery of the church of Santa Reparata, the church that once stood where the cathedral now stands. The term monumental serves to differentiate it from the later-established urban cemetery in Pisa.
The building was the fourth and last one to be raised in the Cathedral Square. It dates from a century after the bringing of the soil from Golgotha, and was erected over the earlier burial ground.
The construction of this huge, oblong Gothic cloister was begun in 1278 by the architect Giovanni di Simone. He died in 1284 when Pisa suffered a defeat in the naval battle of Meloria against the Genoans. The cemetery was only completed in 1464. It seems that the building was not meant to be a real cemetery, but a church called Santissima Triniti, but the project changed during the construction. However we know that the original part was the western one, and all
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