Rediscovering Orciano Pisano: From Earthquake Scars to Beauty

Hello dear friends,

Fortunately, today I had a bit of time to write this post to share with you, giving me once again the chance to introduce you to this town in Tuscany. To be honest, I had already visited it several times because a client of mine lives there, but this time, since he was about four hours late to our appointment, I took the opportunity to enjoy a lovely walk through the streets of this town.

I’m talking about the town of Orciano Pisano, a small municipality located in the Pisan hills. It sits about 120 meters above sea level in the province of Pisa and is just a few kilometers from the sea.
From what I understand, it’s currently one of the least populated towns in the province of Pisa, with around 600 residents. However, in general, the towns in the Pisan hills never exceed 1,000 inhabitants.

As you can see from the photos, the houses aren’t typical of a medieval village, even though this town dates back to around the year 1000 and probably developed under Pisan rule. But the unique feature of this place is that, unfortunately, in 1846 it was devastated by an earthquake, and so the town was rebuilt. You can see that the houses are somewhat more modern, although sadly, as you can clearly see from the photos, they haven’t been well-maintained and are in quite poor condition.

In some cases, the walls of the houses were practically covered in mold, with plaster falling off, which is truly a shame. But we have to understand that restoring these houses is a bureaucratic challenge and also requires a significant amount of money.
On the bright side, the gardens were what I liked most. They were full of flowers and ornamental plants of all kinds, which was quite a positive aspect.

As I continued my walk, I came across a monument dedicated to the fallen soldiers, something fairly typical in towns like this and indeed in all towns across Italy. Unfortunately, as a nation, Italy was devastated by two major conflicts, which are often commemorated in every town and city.

Moving along, I came upon a small workshop where bicycles are still repaired, and in the back of this garage, there was a fully restored Fiat 500. I met an older gentleman there, and we exchanged a few words. He explained to me that he’s retired and has a hobby of repairing bicycles and restoring old cars. It had been a while since I’d seen such an old Fiat 500.

Continuing my stroll, I arrived at one of the town’s most important points of interest, the Church of San Michele. Inside, I discovered a replica of Raphael’s famous painting dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel. I don’t actually know where the original is located, but I assume it’s in a museum where it’s more protected and secure.

I must say, it’s a beautiful church, very simple and quite spacious. You should also consider that, as some people often ask me why such large churches are in these small towns, these towns used to be populated by many more people. It’s only in the last 20-30 years that they’ve become depopulated. The churches had to accommodate all the faithful, and as you may have seen in my posts, many churches now remain closed because of the cost and effort of maintaining them, and sometimes it’s simply not worth opening them for just a few worshippers.
In conclusion, I would say that Orciano Pisano deserves more recognition, although we also have to remember that when certain earthquakes occur, they leave a lasting impact, making it hard to start anew.

I hope that the photos documenting my walk were interesting to you. I’ll see you in the next post, and I wish you all a wonderful day!