In Borgo Stretto, the arcaded street where the Pisans do their shopping, there is a white marble façade covered in writing. It is not recent vandalism: it is graffiti cut into the stone by five centuries of students, townspeople and passers-by, and it includes medieval phrases, names, dates, insults and political slogans from the nineteen-seventies. The church of San Michele in Borgo, founded as a Benedictine abbey and rebuilt in the fourteenth century, carries them all on its face.
What to see
Beneath the writing is one of the most elegant fronts of Pisan Gothic: three superimposed orders of loggias, slender columns, pointed arches, the same grammar as the cathedral translated vertically. The contrast between the fineness of the architecture and the roughness of the graffiti is the whole charm of the place, and nobody has ever decided to remove them.
Inside, the building has three naves with an open timber roof, plain and tall, and keeps remains of frescoes and the crypt of the older church. The bell tower, behind, is medieval. The building suffered damage in the bombing of 1943 and was restored: in the masonry you can see where the work was done.
Visiting
The church is in Borgo Stretto, under the arcades, five minutes from piazza dei Cavalieri and as many from the Arno; free entry with limited hours. A quarter of an hour, longer if you start reading the writing.
Our editors' tip
Stop in front of the façade and look for the oldest inscriptions, which are low down, at the height of a passing hand: some are in Latin, others in the vernacular, and the handwriting changes from century to century. It is a church wall used as a public blackboard for five hundred years, and there are not many others in Italy preserved like this.