San Pietro in Vinculis, Pisa facts for kids

The front of the church, called the façade.

San Pietro in Vinculis is an old and beautiful church in Pisa, a city in the Tuscany region of Italy. It's a Roman Catholic church built in a style called Romanesque.

History of the Church

This church was built by a group of monks called the Augustinians. They started building it in 1072 and finished in 1118. It was built on top of an even older building. A few years later, a rectory (a house for the priest) was added.

Pisan Romanesque Style

The church follows a special building style called the Pisan Romanesque style. This style was made famous by an architect named Buscheto. The church has a main central area called a nave. On each side of the nave, there are two long hallways called aisles. At the end of these aisles are rounded sections called apses.

Church's Exterior Design

The front of the church, known as the façade, has many cool details. It has flat, narrow columns called pilaster strips. There are also "blind arches," which look like arches but are filled in. You can see small round windows called oculi and diamond shapes called lozenges. There are also mullioned windows, which are windows divided by vertical stone bars.

Inside the Church

When you go inside, you'll see a special floor called an intarsia pavement. This floor is made of different colored materials fitted together to create patterns. Underneath this floor is a crypt. A crypt is an underground room, often used for burials.

Crypt Details

The crypt has a ceiling with "groin vaults," which are arched ceilings that cross each other. It also has old Roman capitals, which are the decorated tops of columns. Some people think this crypt might have been an old market area that was later turned into a church.

Art and Artifacts

Inside the church, you can find an old Roman sarcophagus (a stone coffin). There are also parts of old wall paintings called frescoes. A wooden cross with Jesus on it, called a Crucifix, from the 1200s is also there. In the rectory, you can see more frescoes from the 1200s and 1400s. There are also decorations made of stucco (a type of plaster) from the 1700s.

The Bell Tower

The church's bell tower was originally a normal building. It was built in the late 1000s or early 1100s. Later, it was turned into the bell tower we see today.

Important Document

For many years, the church kept a very important old book. This book was a summary of the Corpus Juris Civilis, which was a collection of laws from the Roman Emperor Justinian I. The city of Pisa got this document after they attacked a city called Amalfi in 1137. However, when Pisa was taken over by Florence in 1406, the document was moved to Florence.