The Campo Santo

The Campo Santo of Pisa, that unique "Garden of the Dead," is due to Archbishop Ubaldo (1188-1200), who returned from Palestine with fifty-three ships laden with the sacred earth of Calvary. Giovanni Pisano was employed to enclose this sacred deposit in 1278, and his work was completed in five years. Following the ground plan marked out by the bishop, Giovanni raised his outer wall without windows, and with only two doors (both looking towards the Cathedral, that the frescoes with which the interior was to be covered might be protected, as far as possible, from salt air. Between this outer wall (which he elaborated with arches and pilasters) and the inner, directly contiguous to the burying-ground, he made a broad-roofed corridor, paved with marble, lighted by Gothic windows and four open doorways, through which are obtained glimpses of the graves, the solemn cypresses and the ever-blooming roses of this "God's Acre." The frescoes of the corridor embrace the history of the Old Testament, from the time of Noah to that of Solomon, in twenty-four large compartments, nearly all in a good state of preservation. There is also a large and very fine collection of monuments and fragments of ancient sculpture in the corridors of the Campo Santo. The tomb-stones of those buried within the enclosure form a large portion of the pavement of the corridor. The name Campo Santo--Holy Ground, naturally given to earth from the Holy Land--was by degrees given to all Italian cemeteries.