Within, the church is solemn and full of light.  Sixty-eight antique columns, the spoil of war, uphold the church, while above is a coffered Renaissance ceiling, of the seventeenth century.  There is but little to see beside the church itself, a few altar-pieces, one by Andrea del Sarto; a few tombs; the bronze lamp of Battista Lorenzi, which is said to have suggested the pendulum to Galileo, and that is all in the nave.  The choir screens, work of the Renaissance, are very lovely, while above them are the ambones, from which on a Festa the Epistle and Gospel are sung.  The stalls are of the end of the fifteenth century, and the altar, a dreadful over-decorated work, of the year 1825.  Matteo Civitali of Lucca made the wooden lectern behind the high altar, and Giovanni da Bologna forged the crucifix, while Andrea del Sarto, not at his best, painted the Saints Margaret and Catherine, Peter and John, to the right and left of the altar.  The capital of the porphyry column here is by Stagio Stagi of Pietrasanta, while the porphyry vase is a prize from a crusade.  The mosaics in the apsis are much restored, but they are the only known work of Cimabue,[56] and are consequently, even in their present condition, valuable and interesting.  The most beautiful and the most interesting work of art in the Duomo is the Madonna, carved in ivory in 1300 by Giovanni Pisano, in the sacristy.  This Madonna is a most important link in the history of Italian art; it seems to suggest the way in which French influence in sculpture came into Italy.  Such work as this, by some French master, probably came not infrequently into Italian hands; nor was its advent without significance; you may find its influence in all Giovanni’s work, and in how much of that which came later.[57]

It is but a step across that green meadow to the Baptistery, that like a casket of ivory and silver stands to the west of the Duomo.  It was begun in 1153 by Diotisalvi, but the work went very slowly forward.  In 1164, out of 34,000 families in Pisa subject to taxes, each gave a gold sequin for the continuation of the work, but it was not finished altogether till the fourteenth century.  There are four doors; above them on the east and north are sculptures of the thirteenth century.[58]

Truly, one might as well try to describe the face of one’s angel as these holy places of Pisa, which are catalogued in every guide-book ever written.  At least I will withhold my hand from desecrating further that which is still so lovely.  Only, if you would hear the heavenly choirs before death has his triumph over you, go by night into the Baptistery, having bribed some choir-boy to sing for you, and you shall hear from that marvellous roof a thousand angels singing round the feet of San Raniero.

Perhaps the loveliest thing here is the great octagonal font of various marbles, in which every Pisan child has been christened since 1157; but it is the pulpit of Niccolo Pisano that everyone praises.