Italian Stonehenge Found in Pisa

Dec. 23, 1999 --Pisa's most famous landmark, the Piazza dei Miracoli, which includes the leaning tower, the baptistry, the cathedral and the cemetery, is not only a treasure trove of architectural gems -- it's a sort of Italian Stonehenge, according to an Italian scholar.

Silvano Burgalassi, a Catholic cleric who taught Sociology at Pisa University, claims that the Field of Miracles is a huge time clock linked to the winter and summer solstices.

"It is called Piazza dei Miracoli, the Field of Miracles, and it is no coincidence. Everything here is a miracle of architecture, and a concentrate of scientific and theological knowledge," says Burgalassi, who for 10 years has been trying to unlock the square's architectural secrets.

He has discovered that the baptistry and the cathedral are lined up along a perfect east-west axis, while the cathedral facade is aligned north to south.

The tower, including the famous lean, is 23 and half degrees off the axis and during the winter solstice, four days before Christmas, points to the rising sun.

The baptistry, a circular building often overlooked by tourists, has mathematically perfect proportions based on the number 12 and its multiples, with four entrances facing the cardinal points.

On June 24, the feast of Pisa's patron saint John the Baptist, a ray of sunlight shines through a south-facing window to illuminate the statue of St. John at the center of the building.

But not only light and time dominate the square. Acoustics is the real wonder of the baptistry, which is now being studied by Leonello Tarabella, the head of the university's center for computer music research.

Using computers and acoustic spectrum analyzers, the musicologist studied echoes and reverberations and is now working on a mathematical model that will show how the building's walls can amplify sounds.

"The baptistry is a huge musical instrument. A single voice singing here sounds like a whole chorus," says Tarabella.

If sponsors are found, sounds not heard for seven centuries will echo through the Field of the Miracles next Christmas. With infrared beams and sensors placed at strategic spots in the baptistery, Tarabella will use his "imaginary piano" technique -- in which the hands play in the air with no real keyboard -- to make the baptistry play a concert.

"There will be flowing water, mysterious echoes and fragments of classical music composed by Vincenzo Galilei, the father of Galileo," says Tarabella.

By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News Brief