San Sisto is a church in

Pisa Pisa ( ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Tuscany, Central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for the Leaning Tow ...

Tuscany Tuscany ( ; ) is a Regions of Italy, region in central Italy with an area of about and a population of 3,660,834 inhabitants as of 2025. The capital city is Florence. Tuscany is known for its landscapes, history, artistic legacy, and its in ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. It was consecrated in 1133 but previously it had been already used as the seat of the most important notary act of the Pisan commune. It was built in a Pisane-Romanesque style in stone. The façade is divided in three parts divided by pilaster strips, with a mullioned window and arches in the upper part which continues on the whole exterior. Notable is the typical local decoration with Islamic ceramic basins (

bacini In architecture, bacini (plural, singular , , "bowl") are ceramic bowls that were used for decoration in the medieval Europe. The bowls were embedded into the external walls of (mostly religious) buildings and are thus also known as immured vesse ...

) from the 10th-11th centuries (copies; the original are in the Museum of St. Matthew in the city). The interior has a nave and two aisles, divided by columns with ancient Roman capitals, with hut-shaped ceiling. It houses also an Arabic tombstone, the copy of a 14th-century ''Madonna with Child'' and the

rudder A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, airship, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (usually air or water). On an airplane, the rudder is used primarily to counter adverse yaw ...

of a Pisane galley (13th-14th centuries).

External links

Page with detailed photo of the decoration
{{Pisa landmarks Sisto Romanesque architecture in Pisa Sisto