Every day, the commercial soul of this ancient Maritime Republic lives on in its tower-houses, whose ground-floors nowadays are home to hairdressers, restaurants, boutiques, groceries, glass-making workshops, goldsmiths, opticians, butchers, bakeries, estate agents and a host of other shops and businesses, creating a city within the city and offering an alternative way of shopping, in which there is no room for haste but plenty of history, quality products and kind people.

Some of these businesses already existed in the Middle Ages in the district known as Chinzica: goldsmiths, barbers, tailors, butchers and wine-sellers are all mentioned in historical documents.

Via La Nunziatina is named after an old church, dedicated to Saint Annunziata and located opposite the Grilletti Square.

In La Nunziatina street, time seems to have stopped to the Middle Ages when Pisa dominated the seas and had become an economic powerhouse, to the point that the whole of Tuscany knew it as La Dominante, the Dominating City.

In 1605 the Banchi loggias were built in Corso Italia, the city's high-street, where wool and silk were sold and money exchanged, also boosting business in La Nunziatina district, where new shops sprung up. Intersecting Corso Italia is the Mastiani Palace. In 1402 the Mastiani family arrived in Pisa from S.Giuliano la Vena and were ennobled in the 18th century.

In the following century the family became famous all over Tuscany for its mundane parties, in which poets Vittorio Alfieri and Giacomo Leopardi also took part.

The Mastiani Brunacci Palace, with 118 rooms and 20 ballrooms, was the first in town to be equipped with electricity. In 1951 the family became extinct, leaving behind only their coat of arms on the Palace's facade.