a university, to lead the greatest doctors to lecture there; and to establish the Theatre of the Schools he sent ambassadors in the name of the Republic to Pope Benedict for his authorisation.  Needless to say, this was given and in 1340 we find Messer Bartolo da Sassoferrato and Messer Guido da Prato, Doctor of Physics, lecturing on “Chirugia."[80] In 1589, Galileo was Professor of Mathematics here.  The present building dates from 1493.  Close by, between the University and the Lung’ Arno, are the remains of an old gate of the city, Porta Aurea, and some remnants of towers.

Crossing Arno by Ponte Solferino, and turning along the Lung’ Arno Gambacorti to the left, we come suddenly upon a great Piazza in which an old and splendid church is hidden away.  And just as the Duomo, the great church of the northern part of the city, is set just within the walls far away from the Borgo, so here, in the southern part of Pisa, S. Paolo a Ripa d’Arno is abandoned by the riverside on the verge of the country, for the fields are at its threshold.  And indeed, this desolate church is really older than the Duomo, for, as some say, it served as the Great Church of Pisa while the Cathedral was building.  Founded, as the Pisans assert, by Charlemagne in 805, it was rather the model of the Duomo, if this be true, than, as is generally supposed, a copy of it.  Bare for the most part and empty, its original beauty and simplicity still remain to it; nor should any who find it omit to pass into the priest’s house, to see the old Baptistery now in the hands of Benedictine nuns.

On our way back to Pisa by the Lung’ Arno Gambacorti, we may look always with new joy at the Torre Guelfa, almost all that is left of the great arsenal built in 1200.  And then you will not pass without entering, it may be, S. Maria della Spina, where of old the huntsmen used to hear Mass at dawn before going about their occasions.

And many another church in Pisa is devout and beautiful.  S. Sepolcro, which Diotisalvi made, he who built the Baptistery, a church of the Knights Templars below the level of the way; S. Martino too, both in Chinseca, that part of the city named after her who gave the alarm nearly a thousand years ago when the Saracen sails hove in sight.—­Ah, do not be in a hurry to leave Pisa for any other city.  Let us think of old things for a little, and be quiet.  It may be we shall never see that line of hills again—­Monti Pisani; it were better to look at them a little carefully.  A little while before to-day the most precious of our dreams was not so lovely as that spur of the Apennines.

FOOTNOTES: 

[17] Muratori, Annali ad ann.:  He quotes from Annali Pisani (see tom. vi., Rer.  Ital.  Scrip):  “Fecerunt bellum Pisani cum Lucensibus in Aqua longa, et vicerunt illos.”  See Arch.  St. It.  VI. ii. p. 4.  Cron.  Pis. ad annum.

[18] Muratori, Annali ad ann. 1050:  “et Pisa fuit firmata de tota Sardinia a Romana sede.”—­Ann.  Pis., R.I.S., tom. vi.