Pisa held a maritime empire before Florence held anything, and its art shows it: Islamic-influenced Romanesque striping, the Pisano dynasty's pulpits, and a 1,200 m² fresco cycle. Three days of galleries, theatres and studio streets, tower excluded.
Pisa's great painting collection in an 11th-c Benedictine convent on the Arno: Simone Martini's polyptych, Masaccio's St Paul, Donatello's gilded reliquary bust of San Rossore, and Giovanni Pisano's Madonna del Latte. Tue–Sat 08:30–19:30, Sun 08:30–13:30.
The cobalt-blue palazzo on the south bank, restored by Fondazione Pisa as Pisa's exhibition house — big-name shows (Chagall, Modigliani, Escher have all run here) plus permanent floors of 14th–20th-c Pisan painting and period rooms.
A jewel-box Gothic oratory perched on the Arno parapet, built 1230 and rebuilt 1323 to hold a thorn from Christ's crown. Every surface carries tabernacles, gables and statues from the Pisano workshops; dismantled and raised stone by stone in 1871 after flooding.
Haring's last public work, painted June 1989 on the rectory wall of Sant'Antonio Abate: 180 m² of thirty interlocking figures on human harmony, his only permanent outdoor mural in Italy. Free, visible around the clock from the piazza.
Pisa's 1867 opera house on Via Palestro, horseshoe auditorium with four tiers of boxes and about 900 seats. Season runs opera, ballet and prose from October to April; daytime tours take in the foyer, boxes and stage machinery when no rehearsal is called.
University-run print and graphic-arts museum in a 17th-c riverside palazzo, holding the Alinari and Timpanaro collections plus rotating shows of engraving, illustration and poster design. One of the few places in Italy dedicated purely to works on paper.
Vasari's 1562 facade for the Knights of St Stephen, smothered in black-and-white sgraffito of zodiac signs and allegories, busts of Medici grand dukes above. Now the Scuola Normale Superiore; the piazza was Pisa's civic heart before the Medici took it.
Vasari-designed knights' church with a Buontalenti facade, hung with captured Ottoman battle banners from Lepanto. Chamber concerts and choral evenings run through the year, the coffered gilt ceiling doing most of the acoustic work.
Founded 1543 by Luca Ghini, the world's first university botanical garden on its own land. Three hectares of glasshouses, a shell-encrusted 18th-c fountain grotto, and a botanical museum of wax models and herbaria behind Via Roma.
The arcaded 16th-c produce market square in the old quarter — greengrocers and fishmongers under the loggia by morning, student osterie and wine counters spilling out from noon. Sfizi, cecina and a glass of Bolgheri for under €10.
12th-c church on Via Santa Maria with a leaning octagonal campanile attributed to Nicola Pisano, containing a helicoidal double-spiral stair that Bramante later studied for the Vatican Belvedere. Also holds Traini's panel of St Nicholas sparing Pisa from plague.
Cross Ponte di Mezzo into the south-bank quarter where Pisans actually live: Corso Italia's shopping run, then the quiet lanes of San Martino with its 14th-c church, artisan workshops, and the Bagni di Nerone brickwork at the walls.