Begun in 1278 by Giovanni di Simone to house the shiploads of holy Golgotha dirt (the mount where Christ was crucified) brought back by an archbishop from the Crusades, the Camposanto has been burial ground for Pisan bigwigs ever since. Most funerary monuments are recycled Roman sarcophagi or neoclassical confections installed in the peacefully arcaded corridor encircling the patches of green in the center.
The walls were once covered with important 14th- and 15th-century frescoes by Taddeo Gaddi, Spinello Aretino, and Benozzo Gozzoli, among others. On July 27, 1944, however, American warplanes launched a heavy attack against the city (which was still in Nazi hands) and the cemetery was bombed. The wooden roof caught fire, and its lead panels melted and ran right down over the frescoes, destroying most of the paintings and severely damaging the few that remained. When the surviving frescoes were detached to be moved, workers discovered the artists’ preparatory sketches (sinopie) underneath. These, along with the sinopie of the destroyed frescoes, are housed in the Museo delle Sinopie .
A doorway off one corridor leads to an exhibit of photos of the frescoes from before 1944 and of the devastation wreaked by the bombing. Also here is a 2nd-century-B.C. Greek vase that inspired the Pisan Gothic sculptors. Then come the few damaged frescoes that made it through the bombing. The most fascinating is the 14th-century Triumph of Death. The attribution to any one artist is so contested that the work’s painter has been dubbed, somewhat melodramatically, “The Master of the Triumph of Death.” Liszt was so moved by it that he sat down and wrote his famous Totentanz.
