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126-585: It is situated on the main road and rail link from Pisa to Genova , just north of Viareggio . The town has Roman origins and part of the Roman wall still exists. The medieval town was founded in 1255 upon the pre-existing "Rocca di Sala" fortress of the Lombards by Luca Guiscardo da Pietrasanta, from whom it got its name. Pietrasanta was at its height a part of the Republic of Genoa (1316–1328). The town

252-415: A maritime nation began to grow and reached its apex in the 11th century, when it acquired traditional fame as one of the four main historical maritime republics of Italy ( Repubbliche Marinare ). At that time, the city was a very important commercial centre and controlled a significant Mediterranean merchant fleet and navy. It expanded its powers in 1005 through the sack of Reggio Calabria in

378-539: A city from which Rome would emerge. The Aeneid 's first six books describe the journey of Aeneas from Troy to Rome. Virgil made use of several models in the composition of his epic; Homer, the pre-eminent author of classical epic, is everywhere present, but Virgil also makes special use of the Latin poet Ennius and the Hellenistic poet Apollonius of Rhodes among the various other writers to whom he alludes. Although

504-507: A combined fleet of Pisan and Sicilian ships, led by the emperor's son Enzo , attacked a Genoese convoy carrying prelates from northern Italy and France, next to the isle of Giglio ( Battle of Giglio ), in front of Tuscany ; the Genoese lost 25 ships, while about a thousand sailors, two cardinals, and one bishop were taken prisoner. After this major victory, the council in Rome failed, but Pisa

630-473: A commentator of the 4th century AD, based his work on the commentary of Donatus . Servius's commentary provides us with a great deal of information about Virgil's life, sources, and references; however, many modern scholars find the variable quality of his work and the often simplistic interpretations frustrating. Even as the Western Roman Empire collapsed, literate men acknowledged that Virgil

756-532: A district 1.9 mi (3 km) from the centre of Naples , near the Mergellina harbour, on the road heading north along the coast to Pozzuoli . While Virgil was already the object of literary admiration and veneration before his death, in the Middle Ages his name became associated with miraculous powers, and for a couple of centuries his tomb was the destination of pilgrimages and veneration. Through

882-540: A dominant position in the markets of southern France. The war began in 1165 on the Rhône , when an attack on a convoy, directed to some Pisan trade centres on the river, by the Genoese and their ally, the count of Toulouse , failed. Pisa, though, was allied to Provence. The war continued until 1175 without significant victories. Another point of attrition was Sicily , where both the cities had privileges granted by Henry VI . In 1192, Pisa managed to conquer Messina. This episode

1008-415: A few short pieces. Already acclaimed in his own lifetime as a classic author, Virgil rapidly replaced Ennius and other earlier authors as a standard school text, and stood as the most popular Latin poet through late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and early modernity, exerting inestimable influence on all subsequent Western literature . Geoffrey Chaucer assigned Virgil a uniquely prominent position among all

1134-461: A fresh perspective. Eclogues 1 and 9 address the land confiscations and their effects on the Italian countryside. 2 and 3 are pastoral and erotic, discussing both homosexual love ( Ecl . 2) and attraction toward people of any gender ( Ecl . 3). Eclogue 4 , addressed to Asinius Pollio , the so-called "Messianic Eclogue", uses the imagery of the golden age in connection with the birth of a child (who

1260-588: A great center by the times described; and gives the epithet of Alphēae to the city because it was said to have been founded by colonists from Pisa in Elis , near which the Alpheius river flowed. The Virgilian commentator Servius wrote that the Teuti founded the town 13 centuries before the start of the common era. The maritime role of Pisa should have been already prominent if the ancient authorities ascribed to it

1386-549: A maritime city, with ships sailing up the Arno. In the 90s AD, a baths complex was built in the city. During the last years of the Western Roman Empire , Pisa did not decline as much as the other cities of Italy, probably due to the complexity of its river system and its consequent ease of defence. In the seventh century, Pisa helped Pope Gregory I by supplying numerous ships in his military expedition against

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1512-460: A member of the gens Magia , to which Virgil's mother belonged, is found at Casalpoglio , just 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) from Calvisano. In 1915, G. E. K. Braunholtz drew attention to the proximity of these inscriptions to each other, and the fact that Calvisano is exactly 30 Roman miles from Mantua, which led Robert Seymour Conway to theorize that these inscriptions have to do with relatives of Virgil, and Calvisano or Carpenedolo , not Pietole,

1638-495: A particularly important example of post-Virgilian response to the epic genre. Lucan 's epic, the Bellum Civile , has been considered an anti-Virgilian epic, disposing of the divine mechanism, treating historical events, and diverging drastically from Virgilian epic practice. The Flavian-era poet Statius in his 12-book epic Thebaid engages closely with the poetry of Virgil; in his epilogue he advises his poem not to "rival

1764-470: A refugee of the Trojan War , named Aeneas , as he struggles to fulfill his destiny. His intentions are to reach Italy, where his descendants Romulus and Remus are to found the city of Rome. The epic poem consists of 12 books in dactylic hexameter verse which describe the journey of Aeneas , a warrior fleeing the sack of Troy, to Italy, his battle with the Italian prince Turnus, and the foundation of

1890-677: Is attributed by other authorities to an anonymous author of the 5th or 6th century AD who drew on Donatus, Servius, and Phocas. The Servian life was the principal source of Virgil's biography for medieval readers, while the Donatian life enjoyed a more limited circulation, and the lives of Phocas and Probus remained largely unknown. Although the commentaries record much factual information about Virgil, some of their evidence can be shown to rely on allegorizing and on inferences drawn from his poetry. For this reason, details regarding Virgil's life story are considered somewhat problematic. According to

2016-500: Is based on a driverless "horizontal funicular " that travels the distance in 5 minutes, with a 5-minute frequency, having an intermediate stop at parking station San Giusto/Aurelia. Consorzio Pisano Trasporti , also known as CPT , was a Società consortile a responsabilità limitata (Scarl) that operated since 2005 the local public transport in Pisa and in the province . Became subsidiary of Compagnia Toscana Trasporti Nord in 2012 and

2142-415: Is characterized by cool to mild winters and hot summers. This transitional climate allows Pisa to have summers with moderate rainfall . Rainfall peaks in autumn. Snow is rare. The highest officially recorded temperature was 39.5 °C (103.1 °F) on 22 August 2011 and the lowest was −13.8 °C (7.2 °F) on 12 January 1985. In Pisa there was a festival and game fr:Gioco del Ponte (Game of

2268-622: Is first mentioned in 1331 in records of Genoa, when it became a part of the Lucca along with the river port of Motrone, and was held until 1430. At that time it passed back to Genoa until 1484, when it was annexed to the Medici held seigniory of Florence . In 1494, Charles VIII of France took control of the town. It remained a Luccan town again until Pope Leo X , a member of the Medici family, gave Pietrasanta back to his family. The town then became

2394-403: Is not supported by narrative evidence from his writings or his later biographers. A tradition of obscure origin, which was accepted by Dante, identifies Andes with modern Pietole , two or three miles southeast of Mantua. The ancient biography attributed to Probus records that Andes was thirty Roman miles (about 45 kilometres or 28 miles) from Mantua. There are eight or nine references to

2520-629: Is often mentioned, and Varius Rufus , who later helped finish the Aeneid . At Maecenas's insistence (according to the tradition) Virgil spent the ensuing years (perhaps 37–29 BC) on the long dactylic hexameter poem called the Georgics (from Greek, "On Working the Earth"), which he dedicated to Maecenas. Virgil worked on the Aeneid during the last eleven years of his life (29–19 BC), commissioned, according to Propertius , by Augustus . According to

2646-410: Is said to have received the toga virilis on the very day that Lucretius died. From Cremona, he moved to Milan, and shortly afterwards to Rome. After briefly considering a career in rhetoric and law, the young Virgil turned his talents to poetry. Despite the biographers statements that Virgil's family was of modest means, these accounts of his education, as well as of his ceremonial assumption of

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2772-433: Is said to have written a memoir of his friend Virgil, and Suetonius likely drew on this lost work and other sources contemporary with the poet. A life written in verse by the grammarian Phocas (probably active in the 4th through 5th century AD) differs in some details from Donatus and Servius. Henry Nettleship believed that the life attributed to Probus may have drawn independently from the same sources as Suetonius, but it

2898-564: Is still home to over 50 marble workshops and bronze foundries. Pietrasanta is twinned with Pisa Pisa ( / ˈ p iː z ə / PEE -zə ; Italian: [ˈpiːza] or [ˈpiːsa] ) is a city and comune (municipality) in Tuscany , central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea . It is the capital city of

3024-587: Is still the seat of an archbishopric . Besides its educational institutions, it has become a light industrial centre and a railway hub. It suffered repeated destruction during World War II . Since the early 1950s, the US Army has maintained Camp Darby just outside Pisa, which is used by many US military personnel as a base for vacations in the area. Pisa has a borderline humid subtropical climate ( Köppen climate classification : Cfa ) and Mediterranean climate ( Köppen climate classification : Csa ). The city

3150-473: Is the character of Aeneas. As the protagonist of the poem, Aeneas seems to waver constantly between his emotions and commitment to his prophetic duty to found Rome; critics note the breakdown of Aeneas's emotional control in the last sections of the poem where the "pious" and "righteous" Aeneas mercilessly slaughters Turnus. The Aeneid appears to have been a great success. Virgil is said to have recited Books 2, 4, and 6 to Augustus; and Book 6 apparently caused

3276-469: Is the main railway station and is located along the Tyrrhenic railway line . It connects Pisa directly with several other important Italian cities such as Rome , Florence , Genoa , Turin , Naples , Livorno , and Grosseto . Pisa San Rossore links the city with Lucca (20 minutes north-east of Pisa) and Viareggio and is also reachable from Pisa Centrale . It is a minor railway station located near

3402-456: Is the site of Andes. E. K. Rand defended the traditional site at Pietole, noting that Egnazio 's 1507 edition of Probus' commentary, supposedly based on a "very ancient codex" from Bobbio Abbey which can no longer be found, says that Andes was three miles from Mantua, and arguing that this is the correct reading. Conway replied that Egnazio's manuscript cannot be trusted to have been as ancient as Egnazio claimed it was, nor can we be sure that

3528-545: Is transmitted chiefly in vitae ('lives') of the poet prefixed to commentaries on his work by Probus , Donatus , and Servius . The life given by Donatus is generally considered to closely reproduce the life of Virgil from a lost work of Suetonius on the lives of famous authors, just as Donatus used this source for the poet's life in his commentary on Terence , where Suetonius is explicitly credited. The far shorter life given by Servius likewise seems to be an abridgement of Suetonius except for one or two statements. Varius

3654-571: The Campo Santo (the monumental cemetery). The medieval complex includes the above-mentioned four sacred buildings, the hospital and few palaces. All the complex is kept by the Opera (fabrica ecclesiae) della Primaziale Pisana , an old non profit foundation that has operated since the building of the Cathedral in 1063 to maintain the sacred buildings. The area is framed by medieval walls kept by

3780-722: The Divine Comedy . Dante also mentions Virgil in De vulgari eloquentia , as one of the four regulati poetae along with Ovid , Lucan and Statius (ii, vi, 7). The Renaissance saw a number of authors inspired to write epic in Virgil's wake: Edmund Spenser called himself the English Virgil; Paradise Lost was influenced by the example of the Aeneid ; and later artists influenced by Virgil include Berlioz and Hermann Broch . The legend of "Virgil in his basket" arose in

3906-478: The gens to which Vergil belonged, gens Vergilia , in inscriptions from Northern Italy . Out of these, four are from townships remote from Mantua, three appear in inscriptions from Verona , and one in an inscription from Calvisano , a votive offering to the Matronae (a group of deities) by a woman called Vergilia, asking the goddesses to deliver from danger another woman, called Munatia. A tomb erected by

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4032-632: The Aeneid became standard texts in school curricula with which all educated Romans were familiar. Poets following Virgil often refer intertextually to his works to generate meaning in their own poetry. The Augustan poet Ovid parodies the opening lines of the Aeneid in Amores 1.1.1–2, and his summary of the Aeneas story in Book 14 of the Metamorphoses , the so-called "mini-Aeneid", has been viewed as

4158-525: The Aeneid casts itself firmly into the epic mode, it often seeks to expand the genre by including elements of other genres, such as tragedy and aetiological poetry. Ancient commentators noted that Virgil seems to divide the Aeneid into two sections based on the poetry of Homer; the first six books were viewed as employing the Odyssey as a model while the last six were connected to the Iliad . Book 1 (at

4284-612: The Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus granted them special mooring and trading rights. In all these cities, the Pisans were granted privileges and immunity from taxation, but had to contribute to the defence in case of attack. In the 12th century, the Pisan quarter in the eastern part of Constantinople had grown to 1,000 people. For some years of that century, Pisa was the most prominent commercial and military ally of

4410-705: The Byzantines of Ravenna (what "military expedition by Pope Gregory against the Byzantine Empire" ): Pisa was the sole Byzantine centre of Tuscia to fall peacefully in Lombard hands, through assimilation with the neighbouring region where their trading interests were prevalent. Pisa began in this way its rise to the role of main port of the Upper Tyrrhenian Sea and became the main trading centre between Tuscany and Corsica , Sardinia , and

4536-627: The Calabrians took it away, Naples holds me now; I sang of pastures, farms, and commanders." (transl. Bernard Knox ) Martial reports that Silius Italicus annexed the site to his estate (11.48, 11.50), and Pliny the Younger says that Silius "would visit Virgil's tomb as if it were a temple" ( Epistulae 3.7.8). The structure known as Virgil's tomb is found at the entrance of an ancient Roman tunnel ( grotta vecchia ) in Piedigrotta ,

4662-638: The Catalepton , consists of fourteen short poems, some of which may be Virgil's, and another, a short narrative poem titled the Culex ("The Gnat"), was attributed to Virgil as early as the 1st century AD. The Eclogues (from the Greek for "selections") are a group of ten poems roughly modeled on the bucolic (that is, "pastoral" or "rural") poetry of the Hellenistic poet Theocritus , which were written in dactylic hexameter . While some readers have identified

4788-508: The Georgics to Octavian upon his return from defeating Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. The Aeneid is widely considered Virgil's finest work, and is regarded as one of the most important poems in the history of Western literature ( T. S. Eliot referred to it as 'the classic of all Europe'). The work (modelled after Homer 's Iliad and Odyssey ) chronicles

4914-511: The Middle Ages , and is often seen in art and mentioned in literature as part of the Power of Women literary topos , demonstrating the disruptive force of female attractiveness on men. In this story Virgil became enamoured of a beautiful woman, sometimes described as the emperor's daughter or mistress and called Lucretia. She played him along and agreed to an assignation at her house, which he

5040-520: The Province of Pisa . Although Pisa is known worldwide for its leaning tower , the city contains more than twenty other historic churches, several medieval palaces, and bridges across the Arno. Much of the city's architecture was financed from its history as one of the Italian maritime republics . The city is also home to the University of Pisa , which has a history going back to the 12th century,

5166-473: The Renaissance of the 12th century , Alexander Neckham placed the "divine" Aeneid on his standard arts curriculum, and Dido became the romantic heroine of the age. Monks like Maiolus of Cluny might repudiate what they called "the luxurious eloquence of Virgil", but they could not deny the power of his appeal. Dante presents Virgil as his guide through Hell and the greater part of Purgatory in

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5292-531: The Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa , founded by Napoleon in 1810, and its offshoot, the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies . Most believe the hypothesis that the origin of the name Pisa comes from Etruscan and means 'mouth', as Pisa is at the mouth of the Arno river. Although throughout history there have been several uncertainties about the origin of the city of Pisa, excavations made in

5418-603: The Tyrrhenian Sea . When the Pisans subsequently ousted the Genoese from Sardinia, a new conflict and rivalry was born between these major marine republics. Between 1030 and 1035, Pisa went on to defeat several rival towns in Sicily and conquer Carthage in North Africa . In 1051–1052, the admiral Jacopo Ciurini conquered Corsica , provoking more resentment from the Genoese. In 1063, Admiral Giovanni Orlandi, coming to

5544-573: The bell tower of the cathedral , known as "the leaning Tower of Pisa", is the most famous image of the city, it is one of many works of art and architecture in the city's Piazza del Duomo , also known, since the 20th century, as Piazza dei Miracoli (Square of Miracles), to the north of the old town center. The Piazza del Duomo also houses the Duomo (the Cathedral), the Baptistry and

5670-474: The golem may have been inspired by Virgilian legends about the poet's apocryphal power to bring inanimate objects to life. Possibly as early as the second century AD, Virgil's works were seen as having magical properties and were used for divination . In what became known as the Sortes Vergilianae ("Virgilian Lots"), passages would be selected at random and interpreted to answer questions. In

5796-603: The neoteric writers Pollio and Cinna , it has been inferred that he was, for a time, associated with Catullus 's neoteric circle. According to the Catalepton , he began to write poetry while in the Epicurean school of Siro in Naples. A group of small works attributed to the youthful Virgil by the commentators survive collected under the title Appendix Vergiliana , but are largely considered spurious by scholars. One,

5922-488: The toga virilis, suggest that his father was in fact a wealthy equestrian landowner. He is said to have been tall and stout, with a swarthy complexion and a rustic appearance. Virgil also seems to have suffered bad health throughout his life and in some ways lived the life of an invalid. Schoolmates considered Virgil extremely shy and reserved, and he was nicknamed "Parthenias" ("virgin") because of his social aloofness. The biographical tradition asserts that Virgil began

6048-482: The 12th century, starting around Naples but eventually spreading widely throughout Europe, a tradition developed in which Virgil was regarded as a great magician . Legends about Virgil and his magical powers remained popular for over two hundred years, arguably becoming as prominent as his writings themselves. Virgil's legacy in medieval Wales was such that the Welsh version of his name, Fferyllt or Pheryllt , became

6174-667: The 15th century, access to the sea became more difficult, as the port was silting up and was cut off from the sea. When in 1494, Charles VIII of France invaded the Italian states to claim the Kingdom of Naples , Pisa reclaimed its independence as the Second Pisan Republic. The new freedom did not last long; 15 years of battles and sieges by the Florentine troops led by Antonio da Filicaja , Averardo Salviati and Niccolò Capponi were made, but they failed to conquer

6300-454: The 1980s and 1990s found numerous archaeological remains, including the fifth century BC tomb of an Etruscan prince, proving the Etruscan origin of the city, and its role as a maritime city, showing that it also maintained trade relations with other Mediterranean civilizations. Ancient Roman authors referred to Pisa as an old city. Virgil , in his Aeneid , states that Pisa was already

6426-527: The 1980s and the 1990s, featuring several world-class players such as Diego Simeone , Christian Vieri and Dunga during this time. The club play at the Arena Garibaldi – Stadio Romeo Anconetani , opened in 1919 and with a capacity of 25,000. Shooting was one of the first sports to have their own association in Pisa. The Società del Tiro a Segno di Pisa was founded on July 9, 1862. In 1885, they acquired their own training field. The shooting range

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6552-484: The Aristaeus episode replaced, at the emperor's request, a long section in praise of Virgil's friend, the poet Gallus, who was disgraced by Augustus , and who committed suicide in 26 BC. The tone of the Georgics wavers between optimism and pessimism, sparking critical debate on the poet's intentions, but the work lays the foundations for later didactic poetry. Virgil and Maecenas are said to have taken turns reading

6678-511: The Bridge) which was celebrated (in some form) in Pisa from perhaps the 1200s down to 1807. From the end of the 1400s the game took the form of a mock battle fought upon Pisa's central bridge ( Ponte di Mezzo ). The participants wore quilted armor and the only offensive weapon allowed was the targone , a shield-shaped, stout board with precisely specified dimensions. Hitting below the belt was not allowed. Two opposing teams started at opposite ends of

6804-582: The Byzantine Empire, overcoming Venice itself. In 1113, Pisa and Pope Paschal II set up, together with the count of Barcelona and other contingents from Provence and Italy (Genoese excluded), a war to free the Balearic Islands from the Moors ; the queen and the king of Majorca were brought in chains to Tuscany. Though the Almoravides soon reconquered the island, the booty taken helped

6930-494: The Genoese attacked several galleys on their way home to the motherland, and lasted until 1133. The two cities fought each other on land and at sea, but hostilities were limited to raids and pirate-like assaults. In June 1135, Bernard of Clairvaux took a leading part in the Council of Pisa , asserting the claims of Pope Innocent II against those of Pope Anacletus II , who had been elected pope in 1130 with Norman support, but

7056-697: The Genoese predominance in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea, Pisa strengthened its relationship with its traditional Spanish and French bases (Marseille, Narbonne , Barcelona , etc.) and tried to defy the Venetian rule of the Adriatic Sea . In 1180, the two cities agreed to a nonaggression treaty in the Tyrrhenian and the Adriatic, but the death of Emperor Manuel Comnenus in Constantinople changed

7182-463: The Latin word for 'wand' ( uirga ), Virgil being particularly associated with magic in the Middle Ages . There is also a possibility that virg- is meant to evoke the Latin virgo ('virgin'); this would be a reference to the fourth Eclogue , which has a history of Christian, and specifically Messianic , interpretations . Virgil spent his boyhood in Cremona until his 15th year (55 BC), when he

7308-822: The Leaning Tower zone. There was another station called Pisa Aeroporto situated next to the Airport with services to Pisa Centrale and Florence . It was closed on December 15, 2013, for the realization of a people mover . Pisa is connected to Autostrada A11 from Florence and to Autostrada A12 linking Genoa - Rosignano with exit Pisa Nord and Pisa Centro – Airport . Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro ( Classical Latin : [ˈpuːbliʊs wɛrˈɡɪliʊs ˈmaroː] ; 15 October 70 BC – 21 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( / ˈ v ɜːr dʒ ɪ l / VUR -jil ) in English,

7434-487: The Mediterranean and the prominence of the merchant class urged a modification in the city's institutes. The system with consuls was abandoned, and in 1230, the new city rulers named a capitano del popolo ("people's chieftain") as civil and military leader. Despite these reforms, the conquered lands and the city itself were harassed by the rivalry between the two families of Della Gherardesca and Visconti . In 1237

7560-546: The Pisan crusaders were led by their archbishop Daibert , the future patriarch of Jerusalem . Pisa and the other Repubbliche Marinare took advantage of the crusade to establish trading posts and colonies in the Eastern coastal cities of the Levant . In particular, the Pisans founded colonies in Antiochia , Acre, Jaffa , Tripoli , Tyre , Latakia , and Accone. They also had other possessions in Jerusalem and Caesarea , plus smaller colonies (with lesser autonomy) in Cairo , Alexandria , and of course Constantinople , where

7686-594: The Pisans in their magnificent programme of buildings, especially the cathedral , and Pisa gained a role of pre-eminence in the Western Mediterranean . In the following years, the powerful Pisan fleet, led by archbishop Pietro Moriconi , drove away the Saracens after ferocious battles. Though short-lived, this Pisan success in Spain increased the rivalry with Genoa. Pisa's trade with Languedoc , Provence ( Noli , Savona , Fréjus , and Montpellier ) were an obstacle to Genoese interests in cities such as Hyères , Fos , Antibes , and Marseille . The war began in 1119 when

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7812-444: The Pisans violated it by blockading the port of Brindisi in Apulia . In the following naval battle, they were defeated by the Venetians. The war that followed ended in 1206 with a treaty in which Pisa gave up all its hopes to expand in the Adriatic, though it maintained the trading posts it had established in the area. From that point on, the two cities were united against the rising power of Genoa and sometimes collaborated to increase

7938-439: The Rutulians; Book 10, the death of Evander's young son Pallas ; and 11 the death of the Volscian warrior princess Camilla and the decision to settle the war with a duel between Aeneas and Turnus. The Aeneid ends in Book 12 with the taking of Latinus's city, the death of Amata, and Aeneas's defeat and killing of Turnus, whose pleas for mercy are spurned. The final book ends with the image of Turnus's soul lamenting as it flees to

8064-431: The Visconti family from Milan and eventually to Florence again. Livorno took over the role of the main port of Tuscany. Pisa acquired a mainly cultural role spurred by the presence of the University of Pisa , created in 1343, and later reinforced by the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa (1810) and Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies (1987). Pisa was the birthplace of the important early physicist Galileo Galilei . It

8190-436: The aid of the Norman Roger I , took Palermo from the Saracen pirates. The gold treasure taken from the Saracens in Palermo allowed the Pisans to start the building of their cathedral and the other monuments which constitute the famous Piazza del Duomo . In 1060, Pisa engaged in its first battle with Genoa . The Pisan victory helped to consolidate its position in the Mediterranean. Pope Gregory VII recognised in 1077

8316-464: The ancient vitae , Publius Vergilius Maro was born on the Ides of October in the consulship of Pompey and Crassus (15 October 70 BC) in the village of Andes, near Mantua in Cisalpine Gaul ( northern Italy , added to Italy proper during his lifetime). The Donatian life reports that some say Virgil's father was a potter, but most say he was an employee of an apparitor named Magius, whose daughter he married. According to Phocas and Probus,

8442-489: The apex of Pisa's power, but also spurred the resentment of other cities such as Lucca , Massa , Volterra , and Florence , thwarting their aim to expand towards the sea. The clash with Lucca also concerned the possession of the castle of Montignoso and mainly the control of the Via Francigena , the main trade route between Rome and France. Last, but not least, such a sudden and large increase of power by Pisa could only lead to another war with Genoa. Genoa had acquired

8568-429: The archbishop and the Emperor Frederick II intervened to reconcile the two rivals, but the strains continued. In 1254, the people rebelled and imposed 12 Anziani del Popolo ("People's Elders") as their political representatives in the commune. They also supplemented the legislative councils, formed of noblemen, with new People's Councils, composed by the main guilds and by the chiefs of the People's Companies. These had

8694-418: The attempt through poetic petitions to regain his property have traditionally been seen as his motives in the composition of the Eclogues . This is now thought to be an unsupported inference from interpretations of the Eclogues . In Eclogues 1 and 9, Virgil indeed dramatizes the contrasting feelings caused by the brutality of the land expropriations through pastoral idiom but offers no indisputable evidence of

8820-403: The beloved Laus Italiae of Book 2, the prologue description of the temple in Book 3, and the description of the plague at the end of Book 3. Book 4 concludes with a long mythological narrative, in the form of an epyllion which describes vividly the discovery of beekeeping by Aristaeus and the story of Orpheus ' journey to the underworld. Ancient scholars, such as Servius, conjectured that

8946-461: The bridge fight there. The fighters arrived fully armored, wearing helmets, each carrying their banner, which was planted at both ends of the bridge, which is quite wide and long. The battle is fought with certain wooden implements made for this purpose, which they wear over their arms and are attached to them, with which they pummel each other so intensely that I saw several of them carried away with bloody and crushed heads. Victory consists of capturing

9072-577: The bridge, in the same way as the fistfights in Venice between the it:Castellani and the Nicolotti ." In 1927 the tradition was revived by college students as an elaborate costume parade. In 1935 Vittorio Emanuele III with the royal family witnessed the first revival of a modern version of the game, which has been pursued in the 20th and 21st centuries with some interruptions and varying degrees of enthusiasm by Pisans and their civic institutions. While

9198-574: The bridge. The object of the two opposing teams was to penetrate, drive back, and disperse the opponents' ranks and to thereby drive them backwards off the bridge. The struggle was limited to forty-five minutes. Victory or defeat was immensely important to the team players and their partisans, but sometimes the game was fought to a draw and both sides celebrated. In 1677 the battle was witnessed by Dutch travelling artist Cornelis de Bruijn . He wrote: "While I stayed in Livorno , I went to Pisa to witness

9324-486: The capital of the Capitanato di Pietrasanta (Captaincy of Pietrasanta), which included all the main settlements of the historical heart of Versilia. The town suffered a long period of decline during the 17th and 18th centuries, partially due to malaria . In 1841, Grand Duke Leopold II of Tuscany promoted several reconstruction projects (including the building of schools specially created to teach carving skills, and

9450-510: The celebrities of human history in The House of Fame (1486–7), describing him as standing on a pilere / that was of tinned yren clere ("on a pillar that was of bright tin-plated iron"), and in the Divine Comedy , in which Virgil appears as the author's guide through Hell and Purgatory , Dante pays tribute to Virgil with the words tu se' solo colui da cu'io tolsi / lo bello stile che m'ha fatto onore ( Inf. I.86–7) ("thou art alone

9576-480: The child was meant to be has been subject to debate). 5 and 8 describe the myth of Daphnis in a song contest, 6, the cosmic and mythological song of Silenus ; 7, a heated poetic contest, and 10 the sufferings of the contemporary elegiac poet Cornelius Gallus . Virgil in his Eclogues is credited with establishing Arcadia as a poetic ideal that still resonates in Western literature and visual arts and with setting

9702-458: The city. Vitellozzo Vitelli with his brother Paolo were the only ones who actually managed to break the strong defences of Pisa and make a breach in the Stampace bastion in the southern west part of the walls, but he did not enter the city. For that, they were suspected of treachery and Paolo was put to death. However, the resources of Pisa were getting low, and at the end, the city was sold to

9828-460: The command of Uguccione della Faggiuola . Eventually, however, after a long siege, Pisa was occupied by Florentines in 1405. Florentines corrupted the capitano del popolo ("people's chieftain"), Giovanni Gambacorta, who at night opened the city gate of San Marco. Pisa was never conquered by an army. In 1409, Pisa was the seat of a council trying to set the question of the Great Schism . In

9954-496: The divine Aeneid , but follow afar and ever venerate its footsteps." Virgil finds one of his most ardent admirers in Silius Italicus . With almost every line of his epic Punica , Silius references Virgil. Partially as a result of his so-called "Messianic" Fourth Eclogue  – widely interpreted later to have predicted the birth of Jesus Christ  – Virgil was in later antiquity imputed to have

10080-501: The emperor's sister Octavia to faint. Although the truth of this claim is subject to scholarly skepticism, it has served as a basis for later art, such as Jean-Baptiste Wicar 's Virgil Reading the Aeneid . Some lines of the poem were left unfinished, and the whole was unedited, at Virgil's death in 19 BC. As a result, the text of the Aeneid that exists may contain faults which Virgil was planning to correct before publication. However,

10206-486: The end came when the Arno started to change course, preventing the galleys from reaching the city's port up the river. The nearby area also likely became infested with malaria . The true end came in 1324, when Sardinia was entirely lost to the Aragonese . Always Ghibelline, Pisa tried to build up its power in the course of the 14th century, and even managed to defeat Florence in the Battle of Montecatini (1315), under

10332-628: The fierce wars between Carthage and Rome. In Book 5, funeral games are celebrated for Aeneas's father Anchises , who had died a year before. On reaching Cumae , in Italy in Book 6, Aeneas consults the Cumaean Sibyl , who conducts him through the Underworld where Aeneas meets the dead Anchises who reveals Rome's destiny to his son. Book 7 (beginning the Iliadic half) opens with an address to

10458-511: The head of the Odyssean section) opens with a storm which Juno , Aeneas's enemy throughout the poem, stirs up against the fleet. The storm drives the hero to the coast of Carthage , which historically was Rome's deadliest foe. The queen, Dido , welcomes the ancestor of the Romans, and under the influence of the gods falls deeply in love with him. At a banquet in Book 2, Aeneas tells the story of

10584-470: The hexameter Eclogues (or Bucolics ) in 42 BC and it is thought that the collection was published around 39–38 BC, although this is controversial. After defeating the army led by the assassins of Julius Caesar in the Battle of Philippi (42 BC), Octavian tried to pay off his veterans with land expropriated from towns in northern Italy, which—according to tradition—included an estate near Mantua belonging to Virgil. The loss of Virgil's family farm and

10710-442: The invention of the naval ram . Pisa took advantage of being the only port along the western coast between Genoa (then a small village) and Ostia . Pisa served as a base for Roman naval expeditions against Ligurians and Gauls . In 180 BC, it became a Roman colony under Roman law, as Portus Pisanus . In 89 BC, Portus Pisanus became a municipium . Emperor Augustus fortified the colony into an important port and changed

10836-443: The jurisdiction over the Pisan countryside, the Pisans were granted freedom of trade in the whole empire, the coast from Civitavecchia to Portovenere , a half of Palermo , Messina , Salerno and Naples , the whole of Gaeta , Mazara , and Trapani , and a street with houses for its merchants in every city of the Kingdom of Sicily . Some of these grants were later confirmed by Henry VI , Otto IV , and Frederick II . They marked

10962-427: The latter spelling spread to the modern European languages. This latter spelling persisted even though, as early as the 15th century, the classical scholar Poliziano had shown Vergilius to be the original spelling. Today, the anglicisations Vergil and Virgil are both considered acceptable. There is some speculation that the spelling Virgilius might have arisen due to a pun, since virg- carries an echo of

11088-536: The magical abilities of a seer; the Sortes Vergilianae , the process of using Virgil's poetry as a tool of divination, is found in the time of Hadrian , and continued into the Middle Ages. In a similar vein Macrobius in the Saturnalia credits the work of Virgil as the embodiment of human knowledge and experience, mirroring the Greek conception of Homer. Virgil also found commentators in antiquity. Servius ,

11214-519: The maritime power of Pisa and the town never fully recovered; in 1290, the Genoese destroyed forever the Porto Pisano (Pisa's port), and covered the land with salt . The region around Pisa did not permit the city to recover from the loss of thousands of sailors from the Meloria, while Liguria guaranteed enough sailors to Genoa. Goods, however, continued to be traded, albeit in reduced quantity, but

11340-561: The municipal administration. Other sights include: San Pietro in Vinculis . Known as San Pierino , it is an 11th-century church with a crypt and a cosmatesque mosaic on the floor of the main nave. Football is the main sport in Pisa; the local team, A.C. Pisa , currently plays in the Serie B (the second highest football division in Italy), and has had a top flight history throughout

11466-569: The muse and recounts Aeneas's arrival in Italy and betrothal to Lavinia , daughter of King Latinus . Lavinia had already been promised to Turnus , the king of the Rutulians , who is roused to war by the Fury Allecto and Amata , Lavinia's mother. In Book 8, Aeneas allies with King Evander , who occupies the future site of Rome, and is given new armor and a shield depicting Roman history. Book 9 records an assault by Nisus and Euryalus on

11592-582: The name of Virgil's mother was Magia Polla. The cognomen of Virgil's maternal family, Magius, and failure to distinguish the genitive form of this rare name ( Magi ) in Servius' life from the genitive magi of the noun magus ("magician"), probably contributed to the rise of the medieval legend that Virgil's father was employed by a certain itinerant magician, and that Virgil was a magician himself. Analysis of his name has led some to believe that he descended from earlier Roman colonists. Modern speculation

11718-454: The name to Colonia Iulia obsequens . Pisa supposedly was founded on the shore, but due to the alluvial sediments from the Arno and the Serchio, whose mouth lies about 11 km (7 mi) north of the Arno's, the shore moved west. Strabo states that the city was 4.0 km (2.5 mi) away from the coast. Currently, it is located 9.7 km (6 mi) from the coast. However, it was

11844-407: The new "Laws and customs of the sea" instituted by the Pisans, and emperor Henry IV granted them the right to name their own consuls, advised by a council of elders. This was simply a confirmation of the present situation, because in those years, the marquis had already been excluded from power. In 1092, Pope Urban II awarded Pisa the supremacy over Corsica and Sardinia, and at the same time raising

11970-466: The nineteenth century, the supposed tomb regularly attracted travellers on the Grand Tour , and it still draws visitors today. According to the commentators, Virgil received his first education when he was five years old and later went to Cremona , Milan , and finally Rome to study rhetoric , medicine , and astronomy , which he would abandon for philosophy. From Virgil's admiring references to

12096-571: The ninth century, the emergence of the Saracen pirates prompted the city to expand its fleet. In the following years, this fleet gave the town an opportunity for more expansion. In 828, Pisan ships assaulted the coast of North Africa . In 871, they took part in the defence of Salerno from the Saracens. In 970, they gave also strong support to Otto I's expedition, defeating a Byzantine fleet in front of Calabrese coasts. The power of Pisa as

12222-491: The one as founder and the other as re-founder of Rome. A strong teleology , or drive towards a climax, has been detected in the poem. The Aeneid is full of prophecies about the future of Rome, the deeds of Augustus, his ancestors, and famous Romans, and the Carthaginian Wars ; the shield of Aeneas even depicts Augustus's victory at Actium against Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII in 31 BC. A further focus of study

12348-414: The one from whom I took the beautiful style that has done honour to me"). In the 20th Century, T. S. Eliot famously began a lecture on the subject "What Is a Classic?" by asserting as self-evidently true that "whatever the definition we arrive at, it cannot be one which excludes Virgil – we may say confidently that it must be one which will expressly reckon with him." Biographical information about Virgil

12474-450: The only obvious imperfections are a few lines of verse that are metrically unfinished (i.e. not a complete line of dactylic hexameter ). Some scholars have argued that Virgil deliberately left these metrically incomplete lines for dramatic effect. Other alleged imperfections are subject to scholarly debate. The works of Virgil almost from the moment of their publication revolutionized Latin poetry . The Eclogues , Georgics , and above all

12600-458: The poem be burned , instead ordering it to be published with as few editorial changes as possible. After his death at Brundisium according to Donatus, or at Taranto according to some late manuscripts of Servius, Virgil's remains were transported to Naples , where his tomb was engraved with an epitaph that he himself composed: Mantua me genuit; Calabri rapuere; tenet nunc Parthenope. Cecini pascua, rura, duces ; " Mantua gave me life,

12726-549: The poet himself with various characters and their vicissitudes, whether gratitude by an old rustic to a new god ( Ecl . 1), frustrated love by a rustic singer for a distant boy (his master's pet, Ecl . 2), or a master singer's claim to have composed several eclogues ( Ecl . 5), modern scholars largely reject such efforts to garner biographical details from works of fiction, preferring to interpret an author's characters and themes as illustrations of contemporary life and thought. The ten Eclogues present traditional pastoral themes with

12852-522: The port, assaulted the castles in the surrounding areas, and drove back an army sent by Roger from Aversa . This victory brought Pisa to the peak of its power and to a standing equal to Venice. Two years later, its soldiers sacked Salerno . In the following years, Pisa was one of the staunchest supporters of the Ghibelline party. This was much appreciated by Frederick I . He issued in 1162 and 1165 two important documents, with these grants: Apart from

12978-525: The power to ratify the laws of the Major General Council and the Senate. The decline is said to have begun on August 6, 1284, when the numerically superior fleet of Pisa, under the command of Albertino Morosini , was defeated by the brilliant tactics of the Genoese fleet, under the command of Benedetto Zaccaria and Oberto Doria , in the dramatic naval Battle of Meloria . This defeat ended

13104-589: The reading "three" is not Egnazio's own conjectural correction of his manuscript to harmonize it with the Pietole tradition, and all other evidence strongly favours the unanimous reading of the other witnesses of "thirty miles." Other studies claim that today's consideration for ancient Andes should be sought in the Casalpoglio area of Castel Goffredo . By the fourth or fifth century AD the original spelling Vergilius had been changed to Virgilius , and then

13230-441: The reopening of the once famous quarries). The area, like most of Tuscany in general, has long enjoyed the patronage of artists. Pietrasanta grew to importance during the 15th century, mainly due to its connection with marble . Michelangelo was the first sculptor to recognize the beauty of the local stone. It has continued to attract many artists including Fernando Botero , Joan Miró , Henry Moore , and Damien Hirst . The town

13356-414: The sack of Troy , the death of his wife, and his escape, to the enthralled Carthaginians, while in Book 3 he recounts to them his wanderings over the Mediterranean in search of a suitable new home. Jupiter in Book 4 recalls the lingering Aeneas to his duty to found a new city, and he slips away from Carthage, leaving Dido to commit suicide, cursing Aeneas and calling down revenge in symbolic anticipation of

13482-465: The situation. Soon, attacks on Venetian convoys were made. Pisa signed trade and political pacts with Ancona , Pula , Zara , Split , and Brindisi ; in 1195, a Pisan fleet reached Pola to defend its independence from Venice, but the Serenissima soon reconquered the rebel sea town. One year later, the two cities signed a peace treaty, which resulted in favourable conditions for Pisa, but in 1199,

13608-552: The south of Italy. Pisa was in continuous conflict with some ' Saracens ' - a medieval term to refer to Arab Muslims - who had their bases in Corsica, for control of the Mediterranean. In 1017, Sardinian Giudicati were militarily supported by Pisa, in alliance with Genoa, to defeat the Saracen King Mugahid, who had settled a logistic base in the north of Sardinia the year before. This victory gave Pisa supremacy in

13734-482: The southern coasts of France and Spain. After Charlemagne had defeated the Lombards under the command of Desiderius in 774, Pisa went through a crisis, but soon recovered. Politically, it became part of the duchy of Lucca . In 860, Pisa was captured by vikings led by Björn Ironside . In 930, Pisa became the county centre (status it maintained until the arrival of Otto I ) within the mark of Tuscia . Lucca

13860-458: The stage for the development of Latin pastoral by Calpurnius Siculus , Nemesianus and later writers. The ostensible theme of the Georgics is instruction in the methods of running a farm. In handling this theme, Virgil follows in the didactic ("how to") tradition of the Greek poet Hesiod 's Works and Days and several works of the later Hellenistic poets. The four books of the Georgics focus respectively on: Well-known passages include

13986-491: The supposed biographic incident. Sometime after the publication of the Eclogues (probably before 37 BC), Virgil became part of the circle of Maecenas , Octavian's capable agent d'affaires who sought to counter sympathy for Antony among the leading families by rallying Roman literary figures to Octavian's side. Virgil came to know many of the other leading literary figures of the time, including Horace , in whose poetry he

14112-614: The town to the rank of archbishopric. Pisa sacked the Tunisian city of Mahdia in 1088. Four years later, Pisan and Genoese ships helped Alfonso VI of Castilla to push El Cid out of Valencia . A Pisan fleet of 120 ships also took part in the First Crusade , and the Pisans were instrumental in the taking of Jerusalem in 1099. On their way to the Holy Land , the ships did not miss the occasion to sack some Byzantine islands;

14238-601: The trading benefits in Constantinople. In 1209 in Lerici , two councils for a final resolution of the rivalry with Genoa were held. A 20-year peace treaty was signed, but when in 1220, the emperor Frederick II confirmed his supremacy over the Tyrrhenian coast from Civitavecchia to Portovenere , the Genoese and Tuscan resentment against Pisa grew again. In the following years, Pisa clashed with Lucca in Garfagnana and

14364-628: The tradition, Virgil traveled to the senatorial province of Achaea in Greece in about 19 BC to revise the Aeneid . After meeting Augustus in Athens and deciding to return home, Virgil caught a fever while visiting a town near Megara . After crossing to Italy by ship, weakened with disease, Virgil died in Apulia on 21 September 19 BC. Augustus ordered Virgil's literary executors, Lucius Varius Rufus and Plotius Tucca , to disregard Virgil's own wish that

14490-485: The underworld. Critics of the Aeneid focus on a variety of issues. The tone of the poem as a whole is a particular matter of debate; some see the poem as ultimately pessimistic and politically subversive to the Augustan regime, while others view it as a celebration of the new imperial dynasty. Virgil makes use of the symbolism of the Augustan regime, and some scholars see strong associations between Augustus and Aeneas,

14616-726: Was a master poet – Saint Augustine , for example, confessing how he had wept at reading the death of Dido. The best-known surviving manuscripts of Virgil's works include manuscripts from late antiquity such as the Vergilius Augusteus , the Vergilius Vaticanus and the Vergilius Romanus . Gregory of Tours read Virgil, whom he quotes in several places, along with some other Latin poets, though he cautions that "we ought not to relate their lying fables, lest we fall under sentence of eternal death". In

14742-607: Was almost completely destroyed during World War II. Pisa has an international airport known as Pisa International Airport or normally Galileo Galilei located in San Giusto neighbourhood in Pisa. It is served by twenty-one airlines connecting eleven domestic and sixty-one international destinations (seasonal included). The airport is connected to Pisa Centrale railway station by a people mover system 2 km (1.2 mi) long, called Pisamover inaugurated in March 2017. It

14868-628: Was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period . He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature : the Eclogues (or Bucolics ), the Georgics , and the epic Aeneid . A number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana , were attributed to him in ancient times, but modern scholars generally regard these works as spurious, with the possible exception of

14994-714: Was defeated by the Florentines at Castel del Bosco. The strong Ghibelline position of Pisa brought this town diametrically against the Pope, who was in a dispute with the Holy Roman Empire , and indeed the pope tried to deprive Pisa of its dominions in northern Sardinia . In 1238, Pope Gregory IX formed an alliance between Genoa and Venice against the empire, and consequently against Pisa, too. One year later, he excommunicated Frederick II and called for an anti-Empire council to be held in Rome in 1241. On May 3, 1241,

15120-512: Was excommunicated. This extreme measure was only removed in 1257. Anyway, the Tuscan city tried to take advantage of the favourable situation to conquer the Corsican city of Aleria and even lay siege to Genoa itself in 1243. The Ligurian republic of Genoa, however, recovered fast from this blow and won back Lerici , conquered by the Pisans some years earlier, in 1256. The great expansion in

15246-507: Was followed by a series of battles culminating in the Genoese conquest of Syracuse in 1204. Later, the trading posts in Sicily were lost when the new Pope Innocent III , though removing the excommunication cast over Pisa by his predecessor Celestine III , allied himself with the Guelph League of Tuscany, led by Florence. Soon, he stipulated a pact with Genoa, too, further weakening the Pisan presence in southern Italy. To counter

15372-400: Was not recognised outside Rome. Innocent II resolved the conflict with Genoa, establishing Pisan and Genoese spheres of influence. Pisa could then, unhindered by Genoa, participate in the conflict of Innocent II against king Roger II of Sicily . Amalfi , one of the maritime republics (though already declining under Norman rule), was conquered on August 6, 1136; the Pisans destroyed the ships in

15498-516: Was one the companies of the consortium ONE Scarl to accomplish the contract stipulated with the Regione Toscana for the public transport in the 2018-2019 period. The fleet consisted of 70 urban, 15 suburban and 260 intercity buses. Since 1 November 2021 the public local transport is managed by Autolinee Toscane . The city is served by two railway stations available for passengers: Pisa Centrale and Pisa San Rossore . Pisa Centrale

15624-561: Was such that it inspired legends associating him with magic and prophecy. From at least the 3rd century, Christian thinkers interpreted Eclogue 4 , which describes the birth of a boy ushering in a golden age, as a prediction of Jesus's birth . In consequence, Virgil came to be seen on a similar level to the Hebrew prophets of the Bible as one who had heralded Christianity. Relatedly, The Jewish Encyclopedia argues that medieval legends about

15750-426: Was the capital but Pisa was the most important city, as in the middle of tenth century Liutprand of Cremona , bishop of Cremona , called Pisa Tusciae provinciae caput ("capital of the province of Tuscia"), and a century later, the marquis of Tuscia was commonly referred to as "marquis of Pisa". In 1003, Pisa was the protagonist of the first communal war in Italy, against Lucca. From the naval point of view, since

15876-415: Was to sneak into at night by climbing into a large basket let down from a window. When he did so he was hoisted only halfway up the wall and then left trapped there into the next day, exposed to public ridicule. The story paralleled that of Phyllis riding Aristotle . Among other artists depicting the scene, Lucas van Leyden made a woodcut and later an engraving . In the Middle Ages, Virgil's reputation

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