Church of Santa Cecilia, via Santa Cecilia

Chiesa di Santa Cecilia (M. Del Rosso, Comune di Pisa)

The church of Santa Cecilia was founded by the Camaldolese monks of San Michele in Borgo in 1103, but some documents mentioned it as a parish starting from 1199. In the 14th and 15th centuries various internal altars were added. Two of the originals were destroyed during the bombings of World War II, along with the entire north wall. The church was then rebuilt. The façade is gabled, the base is in stone and the upper part in brick, decorated with ceramic basins. The particularity of the church is the suspended bell tower from 1236 (in Pisa we also find one in the nearby church of San Francesco): two sides of the bell tower rest on a column inside the church and the other two at the corner of the façade.

The ceramic basins: 26 of the churches in Pisa were decorated with ceramic basins, which in total are 668, of which 117 decorated the church of Santa Cecilia (Apulian and Sicilian proto majolica, Pisan archaic majolica, Savona grinded majolica). All original ceramic basins still existing were removed in the 1970s to avoid theft or damage and are now preserved in the museum of San Matteo. The few that we still see in some of these churches are therefore copies. The originals are dated from the second half of the 10th century to the 17th century. The first came from North Africa from 10th century, but there are also some coming from Egypt (glazed ceramic decorated with metallic lustre), Spain (polychrome glazed ceramic), Sicily (polychrome glazed), Byzantium (engobe and graffiti), Tunisia (cobalt and manganese on white enamel), Andalusia and Morocco… Starting from the 13th century, there is also extensive documentation of local productions. Once the clay was extracted, it was purified by combining it with water in settling tanks, where the heavier bodies descended to the bottom. The clay obtained, still wet, was stamped with the feet before proceeding to the production of the object. Through moulds or directly on the lathe, the shape of the basin was created, left to dry and then cooked in the furnace. Its porosity disappeared once immersed in the enamel. The basin was then cooked again. The colouring of our ceramic basins was obtained with dyes formed by metal oxides, such as tin for white or cobalt for blue, typical of the San Minato areas. The final product was then painted with the form best liked or most inherent to the place of its positioning: half-length human figures, animals (quadrupeds, fish, birds), heraldic emblems, boats, geometric or plant-inspired motifs...