Casa dell'Opera and Domus Comeliana

Statua di bronzo 'Agelo Caduto' dello scultore e pittore polacco Igor Mitoraj di fronte a Casa Dell'Opera (L. Corevi, Comune di Pisa)

From this point, it is easy to see the curvilinear path of the walls. This particularity is due to the existence, in the past, of the Aesar river, then called Auser, which broke the banks in an area still called Ripafratta, and reached Pisa from the north-east, near the church of San Zeno, to continue towards the sea, creating a curve. The latter is still perceptible today thanks to the shape of the walls. In medieval times the Auser branched off further, creating the Auserculum (small Auser) today more or less corresponding to the Serchio, with an independent mouth, and the Ozzeri, a small canal that entered the city from San Zeno and flowed into the Arno near the bridge of Spina Alba (today the Fortezza bridge) to the east.

The building after the Campo Santo is the Casa dell'Opera, seat of the lodgings and offices of the workers that made the square great. The Opera della Primaziale (so called because the Cathedral of Pisa is the home of the Primate, or archbishop of the city), is an institution created to supervise the construction of the monuments in Piazza del Duomo. Then we see two large white cranes to which two steel tie rods were attached that connected to the fourth ring of the Tower of Pisa to support it during the excavation work which allowed it to be straightened between 1990 and 2001.

Along the lawn of the Piazza stands the Domus Comeliana, purchased and restored in 1947 by Professor Marcello Comel, director of the Dermatological Clinic of the University of Pisa. Currently a multifunctional centre.