Friday, March 11, 2016

Kinzica de' Sismondi

Presumed sculpture of Kinzica de' Sismondi, Casa Tizzoni, Via San Martino, Pisa

Presumed sculpture of Kinzica de' Sismondi
(probably only a fragment of a 3rd-century Roman sarcophagus)
Casa Tizzoni
Via San Martino
Pisa, April 2011

“Whereupon, according to the legend, the Saracen Emir Moezz-Ibn-Badis, called Musa or Mugettus by the Italian chroniclers, left Sardinia, which he had conquered, and sailed up the Arno by night to attack Pisa in 1005. The houses on the left bank of the river were in flames and the inhabitants in full flight, when a woman of the Sismondi family named Chinzica rushed across the bridge to the palace of the Consuls and gave the alarm. A statue was erected to her when the burnt portion of the town was rebuilt and called after her.” (Janet Ross and Nelly Erichsen, The Story of Pisa, 1909)

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