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The chroniclers differ greatly in their estimates. Benjamin da Tudela, for instance, says that there were 10,000 in the twelfth century; while Marangone puts the number at 15,000 and Tronci at 16,000. These are round numbers such as the medieval mind loved, but we have abundant evidence that they are not much exaggerated.
The temple, Tronci tells us, was dedicated to the Magnificent Queen of the Universe, Mary, ever Virgin, most worthy Mother of God, Advocate of sinners. It was begun in 1064, and many years, as Tronci says, were consumed in the building of it. The pillars and there are many were brought by the Pisans from Africa, from Egypt, from Jerusalem, from Sardinia, and other far lands.
Thomas's Day in the year of Christ 1006, and was buried with great honour in the Badia of Florence. Tronci says, that beside the Badia di S. Michele di Verruca outside Pisa, "this most pious Marquis" founded also the Church of S. Niccolò, for the use of the Monks of S. Michele Fuori. The Church of S. Niccolò has been altogether restored.
After Visconti came famine, and after the famine the Black Death. Seventy in every hundred of the population died, Tronci tells us, while during the famine, bread, such as it was, had to be distributed every day at the taverns. Then followed a revolution in the city. Count Raniero of the Gherardesca house had succeeded to the Captain-Generalship of Pisa as though it were his right by birth.
Now, whether the comic spirit, so helpful to justice, be strong in our Pisans still, I know not, but on learning of the misfortune of their Lord, they rose, and, without noticing their Imperial Vicar, appointed Anziani to rule by the old laws. Then the burghers and nobles "Cittadini amatori della Patria," Tronci calls them formed the Campagnia di S. Michele, for it bore on its gonfalon St.
For indeed the first bridge seems to have been of wood, partly rebuilt of stone after the great victory off the coast of Sicily, and finished in 1046 . This bridge, called the Ponte Vecchio, took ten years to build, and any doubt we might have as to whether it was of wood or stone is set at rest by Tronci, who tells us that in 1382, "Pietro Gambacorta, together with the Elders and the Consiglio dei Cittadini, determined to rebuild in stone the bridge of wood which passed over Arno from the mouth of the Strada del Borgo to that of S. Egidio, for the greater ornament of the city, chiefly because there were many shops on the bridge that impeded the view of the beautiful Lung' Arno."
Tronci tells us that, being one day in Bologna, where he had gone with Niccolò his master to make a tomb for S. Domenico, when the old tomb was opened he secretly took a bone and hid it, and without saying anything presently set out for Pisa. Arrived there, he placed the relic under the table of the altar of S. Maria Maddalena, and was seen often by the brethren praying there, they knew not why.
The presence of those marvellous abandoned things in the far corner of the city is felt in every byway, in every alley, in every forgotten court. "Amid the desolation of a city" this splendour is immortal, this glory is not dead. "Varie sono le opinioni degli Scrittori circa l'edificazione di Pisa," says Tronci in his Annali Pisani, published at Livorno in the seventeenth century.
The Anziani, Tronci tells us , "were used, for a month before the Festa, to publish it in the following manner. Twenty horses covered all with scarlet, went out of the city bearing twenty youths dressed in fanciful and rich costumes. The first two carried two banners, one of the Comunit
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