The Piazza dei Miracoli or Square of the Miracles is at the heart of Pisa and home to many of its major buildings and attractions.
It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987 and has a history that dates right back to the city's Etruscan and Roman periods. The piazza has always played a central part in the religious life cycle of Pisan citizens.
The monuments which transform a common name of square into the "Piazza dei Miracoli" are: the Cathedral, the Baptistery, the Bell or Leaning Tower and the Monumental Churchyard.
A combination of works of architecture and sculpture which rise stately and austere, but at the same time refined and full of charm, placed around a wide tender green lawn. It is in this natural simplicity that the white marbles, so highly worked and rendered precious by human genius, have found a perfect setting. It is exactly in this pleasant simplicity of the "LAWN" that the greatness of the works, seems almost a creation of nature itself, wonderfully blended, so much so that the tourist, even if passing hastily by, can't help but feel a strong sense of admiration and emotion. This wonderful architectural composition, with so much harmony of styles and colours, contrasts with the beauty of the ancient walls facing west and east, as well as the buildings of the 13th century facing south, today seat of the "Spedali Riuniti di S. Chiara".
The imposing magnificence of the marbles, the green of the lawn, the ancient walls with their embattlements, the sombre and solemn row of cypresses, form a whole really great, even touching play of lights at every hour of the day.
In the evening the sight is perhaps even more beautiful because as the sun sets a dim and soft illumination substitues its light, rendering the play of lights more suggestive and penetrating.