Mappa. Pisa in the Middle Ages

This volume represents the third edition of a work cycle that started in 2006 for my PhD thesis. The thesis was presented in 2010 (first edition, GATTIGLIA 2010), partially published as a summary monograph in 2011 (second edition, GATTIGLIA 2011) or in articles (GATTIGLIA 2012, GATTIGLIA 2012a, GATTIGLIA G. 2011a), and now (third edition) takes the form of a more comprehensive publication in the light of new data. Over the past two years, the work study on Pisa, not only relating to the Middle Ages, continued within the MAPPA (Metodologie Applicate alla Predittività del Potenziale – Methodologies Applied to Archaeological Potential Predictivity) project, allowing a widespread collection of data thanks to which it was possible to explain more fully the hydrogeological, geomorphological and topographic context and to check (and in many cases change) part of the assumptions made. Archaeology, albeit slowly, is moving towards Big Data, i.e. enormous amounts of machine readable data, continuously produced , which can modify theories, conclusions and assumptions at any time and develop new applications for archaeology. We no longer live in an age in which printed texts have a long life cycle before becoming outdated; new data are enough today to contradict or validate the assumptions made. Archaeology is closer and closer to science, not only because it uses scientific analysis methods but because it is based on falsifiable hypotheses, to put it as Popper would say. For this reason, the data analysed here are published as open data on the MOD (ANICHINI et alii 2013) (the open data archive of Italian archaeology www.mappaproject.org/mod) or as searchable data on MAPPA Web GIS (MAPPAgis www.mappaproject.org/webgis). In this first introductory chapter, the history of urban archaeology in Pisa will be briefly presented. The second chapter will provide a broad outline of the territorial context and the landscape. The rivers and marshy areas will be analysed in order to understand how the environment influenced the development of the medieval city for better or for worse. Since man was not a passive responder to these events, the study of the port system and road networks will help understand which solutions were taken to draw the geographical benefits and generate economic and commercial profits. The third and last chapter is divided into two parts. The first part will illustrate the great urban transformations throughout the period ranging from the end of the Roman Age (VI century) to the Florentine conquest (start of the XV century). Although it is still difficult to have a clear picture of the Roman and early-medieval urban design of Pisa, it is nevertheless possible to understand some of its nodal points, to interpret the city’s development during the middle years of the Middle Ages and to analyse what happened during the transition that led to the modern city. The second part will deal with the material traces, i.e. the archaeological sources that allowed us to recover pieces of history and build the overall picture. Excavation data will provide information about the buildings, roads, workshops and craft laboratories, waste disposal and water supply systems, and on the wealth and social status of the city’s inhabitants.