Piazza dei Cavalieri

Facciata - Palazzo dei Cavalieri di Santo Stefano (G. Bettini, Comune di Pisa)

The Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa has its main office right in Piazza dei Cavalieri. The school was founded by Napoleonic decree in 1810 as an academic pension for university students and a branch of the École Normale Supérieure of Paris. The first seat was the convent of San Silvestro and the term Normale refers to the rules that were to educate citizens about obedience, laws and the Emperor. Over the course of the centuries, the school has seen various events, was suppressed and opened again and its statute has undergone a number of revisions until 2014, the year that defined the subdivision of the school into three academic structures: Human Sciences, Mathematic and Natural Sciences and Institute of Human and Social Sciences. It is an elite school based on equality, attended by students from all over the world, which can be accessed following an exam. Every year few are admitted but over the centuries important scientists, writers, politicians, economists and men of culture, who have made history in our country, have graduated from this school, such as Tiziano Terzani, Antonio Tabucchi and Nobel Prize winners Giosuè Carducci, Enrico Fermi and Carlo Rubbia.

The Palazzo dell'Orologio, one of the buildings overlooking the square, still shows the signs of its medieval structures. Under the arch of Gualandi to the right, we can notice the corner of a Verruca stone tower: it is the tower of Gualandi, known as the Muda tower in the Middle Ages, but made famous by Dante Alighieri in the Divine Comedy as the Torre della Fame (Tower of Hunger). It was the prison that hosted Count Ugolino della Gherardesca, the alleged traitor of his homeland, who died here in 1289 together with his children and grandchildren.

Cit. La bocca sollevò dal fiero pasto
quel peccator, forbendola a' capelli
del capo ch'elli avea di retro guasto.
(…)
Tu dei saper ch’i’ fui conte Ugolino,
e questi è l’arcivescovo Ruggieri:
or ti dirò perché i son tal vicino.

Che per l’effetto de’ suo’ mai pensieri,
fidandomi di lui, io fossi preso
e poscia morto, dir non è mestieri;

però quel che non puoi avere inteso,
cioè come la morte mia fu cruda,
udirai, e saprai s’e’ m’ ha offeso.

Breve pertugio dentro da la Muda,
la qual per me ha ’l titol de la fame,
e che conviene ancor ch’altrui si chiuda,
(…)
Quand’ebbe detto ciò, con li occhi torti
riprese ’l teschio misero co’ denti,
che furo a l’osso, come d’un can, forti.

Ahi Pisa, vituperio de le genti
del bel paese là dove 'l sì suona,
poi che i vicini a te punir son lenti,

muovasi la Capraia e la Gorgona,
e faccian siepe ad Arno in su la foce,
sì ch’elli annieghi in te ogne persona!

Che se ’l conte Ugolino aveva voce
d’aver tradita te de le castella,
non dovei tu i figli suoi porre a tal croce.

Dante Alighieri, La Divina Commedia, Inferno, canto XXXIII