Gambacorti Square today is a welcoming spot, livened up by a wealth of restaurants and bars with year-round outdoor seating. This is because the tower-houses surround the square, protecting it from the cold winter months.
The square is also known as Piazza della Pera, the Pear Square, named after the pear-shaped Etruscan stone – the cippo – on the corner of San Martino street. From the 1930s the square held an open fruit and vegetable market first and then a fish market.
From the 50s and 60s it also housed street vendors, five butchers, a blacksmith, a cobbler, a mechanic, a grocery, a fish shop, a barber’s, a sharpener, a milkman and a pork butcher. Most of those shops were still open until the beginning of the 80s, with the owners living in the tower-houses around the square.
In 1981 an explosion caused the collapse of a building, killing nine people. From then on the market was gradually abandoned and subsequently redesigned with a new terracotta paving and plants.
The square also had a church, San Lorenzo in Chinzica, built in 1127, deconsecrated in 1784 and demolished in 1932. In the square you can still admire the Torre Morghen, one of the few red-brick tower-houses left.
Origin of the name: in 1375, when Chiara Gambacorti was 13, she met Caterina da Siena in Pisa. She decided to join the Dominican convent of Santa Croce in Fossabanda. Pietro Gambacorti, magistrate of Pisa, commissioned the monastery of San Domenico for his daughter.
San Bernardo Street
From Corso Italia the street crosses Dell’Orto street, Della Foglia street, it intersects Gambacorti Square until it reaches the 15th century eponymous church.
Along this street you'll find a string of quality shops, restaurants, bars, pubs, B&Bs, DIYs and pastry shops. In the 1950s and 60s there used to be a letterpress, a pastry shop, three butchers, two restaurants, a haberdashery and a bakery. In the Middle Ages you would also have found inn-keepers and bakers; this shows that trade has been thriving in this neighbourhood from the 11th century to our day, another very good reason shop here while breathing in the history of San Bernardo Street.
