Piazza Martiri della Libertà and the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies

Piazza Martiri della Libertà (L. Corevi, Comune di Pisa)

The square was born at the behest of Grand Duke Ferdinand III of Habsburg-Lorraine and is the work of architect Alessandro Gherardesca, who also signed the base of the statue of Grand Duke of Tuscany Pietro Leopoldo I, a work by Luigi Pampaloni from 1829. Originally in this area stood the district of Rivolta, where the Roman walls turned into the civita vetera, then demolished to make the city more modern. The works in this space lasted a long time and in the meantime the area became a place of entertainment for the nobility, with the performance of horse racings and other playful events, such as the game of the armlet. We can say with certainty that the great horse racing tradition of the city was born in this urban space. Today, the square offers a unique spectacle of colours, from the white marble to the green and then yellow-golden leaves of the plane trees.

The SensHand glove: a study conducted on 90 subjects, developed by a group of researchers from the Institute of Bio-Robotics of the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies has shown that in patients with reduced olfactory capacity, a risk factor for the development of Parkinson's within 5 years, it is possible to identify slight motor deflections (not detectable otherwise) that characterise the onset of the disease. The test was successful thanks to a special hi-tech glove, called SensHand, capable of detecting, measuring and analysing the movements of a person's upper limbs in search of hidden anomalies.