Campo dei Miracoli (Piazza del Duomo), Pisa

On the south side of the Piazza del Duomo in Pisa, housed in a former hospice, is the Museo delle Sinópie (opened 1979). During the restoration of the Camposanto a large number of these preliminary sketches for frescoes (sinópie) were discovered, and these are now displayed in the museum. These sketches were the artist's most important contribution to a fresco, specifying as they did every detail of a composition; thereafter the actual execution of the fresco was often left to pupils or assistants. In the museum the sinópie are shown in conjunction with reproductions of the corresponding frescoes.

At the east end of the Campo dei Mirácoli, in the Piazza dell'Arcivescovado, stands the 15th century Palazzo Arcivescovile (Archbishop's Palace), which contains the Archiepiscopal Archives. The chapel on the first floor is decorated with Baroque frescoes.

East of the Piazza del Duomo is the Cathedral Museum (Museo dell'Opera del Duomo), with art of the buildings situated in the Piazza and the valuable treasury including embroideries, tombs, silver church objects, sculpture and pictures.

To the south of the Campo dei Mirácoli, between Via Roma and Via Porta Buozzi, lies the Orto Botánico (Botanic Garden), originally laid out in 1543 by Cosimo de' Medici. It is now associated with the University; in the center of the gardens is the Botanical Institute. Here plants from many different climatic zones flourish, either in the open air or in the various greenhouses.

Northwest of the university, on the south side of the Botanical Garden, is the Domus Galilaeana (house of Galileo), a memorial to the Pisa-born scientist and mathematician Galileo Galilei (library and study).

The Church of Santa Maria, originally built in the 12th century, was much altered in later centuries. The 13th century campanile, like the campanile of the cathedral, leans off the vertical, but less seriously so. The lower part is cylindrical, the upper part octagonal; there is a spiral staircase to the top.

The Church of San Frediano, in the square to the east of the House of Galileo, is first mentioned in the records in 1061, but was probably not finished until the 12th century. The facade with its blind arcading in Romanesque; the interior in its present day form dates from the 16th and 17th centuries.