Palazzo della Carovana

The Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa (commonly known in Italy as "la Normale") is a public university in Pisa and Florence, Tuscany, Italy, currently attended by about 600 undergraduate and postgraduate (PhD) students. It was founded in 1810 with a decree by Napoleon as a branch of the École normale supérieure in Paris, with the aim of training the teachers of the Empire to educate its citizens. In 2013 the Florentine site was added to the historical site in Pisa, following the inclusion of the Institute of Human Sciences in Florence (SUM). Since 2018 the Scuola Normale Superiore has been federated with the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa and with the Institute for Advanced Studies of Pavia, the only other two university institutions with special status that, in the Italian panorama, offer, in accordance with standards of excellence, both undergraduate and postgraduate educational activities. Eminent personalities from the world of science, literature and politics have studied at the Normale, among them Giosuè Carducci, Carlo Rubbia, Enrico Fermi, Aldo Capitini, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Giovanni Gronchi, Giovanni Gentile, Massimo D'Alema as well as Alessio Figalli, in more recent times.

IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca (Italian: Scuola IMT Alti Studi Lucca) is a public research institution and a graduate school located in Lucca, Italy. It was founded in 2005 under the name of IMT Institute for Advanced Studies, where the acronym IMT stands for "Institutions, Markets, Technologies". The school is part of the Italian superior graduate school system and its main Campus is located in the San Francesco Complex within the historic city walls of Lucca. As an institution for advanced studies, IMT Lucca hosts researchers who carry out methodological research, held to high scientific standards, leading to the development of new knowledge. Its international advisory board includes a number of prominent scientists, including Giulio Tononi, Alfio Quarteroni and Adina L. Roskies.

The statue of Cosimo I de' Medici stands in the middle of Knights' Square of Pisa, just in front of Palazzo della Carovana. It was commissioned by Grand Duke Ferdinando I in 1596 to the Franco-Flemish sculptor Pietro Francavilla, who executed it in the elegant Late Mannerist tradition. The statue celebrates Ferdinando's father as the first Grand Master of the Order of the Knights of St. Stephen and is a civic symbol of the hegemony of Florence. The Grand Duke Cosimo is represented in the robes of Grand Master, standing on a high pedestal, in the act of subduing a dolphin, symbol of his domination over the seas. The fountain, in front of the pedestal, was also erected by Francavilla. It has a basin in the form of a shell decorated with two grotesque monsters. The statue has been damaged in the course of time.

Piazza dei Cavalieri (lit. 'Knights' Square') is a landmark in Pisa, Italy, and the second main square of the city. This square was the political centre in medieval Pisa. After the middle of 16th century the square became the headquarters of the Order of the Knights of St. Stephen. Now it is a centre of education, being the main house of the Scuola Normale di Pisa, a higher learning institution part of the University.

The Torre dei Gualandi (also known as the Muda Tower,) is a former tower in Pisa, central Italy, now included in the Palazzo dell'Orologio. It is located on the north part of the Piazza dei Cavalieri. The original tower was located on the right side of the present building. Gualandi was the name of a Pisan family that owned the tower in the 13th century. Ugolino della Gherardesca, his sons and two grandsons were immured in the tower and starved to death in the 13th century. Dante, his contemporary, wrote about Gherardesca in his masterpiece The Divine Comedy.

San Rocco is a small Baroque-style, Roman Catholic church facing the Piazza dei Cavalieri in central Pisa, Italy.

Santo Stefano dei Cavalieri is a church in central Pisa located on Piazza dei Cavalieri (Knight's Square).Construction began on 17 April 1565 in order to build a church for the Order of Knights of St Stephan, founded by the Grand Duke Cosimo de' Medici to fight Saracen piracy in the Mediterranean. The project with designs and oversight by Giorgio Vasari and David Fortini was to build a church on the site of an older church called San Sebastiano alle Fabbriche Maggiori, which dated at least to 1074. The new church on the site was consecrated by 21 December 1569. The facade, in white marble was designed by Don Giovanni de' Medici, illegitimate son of Cosimo I, with the help of Alessandro Pieroni; their designs were chosen over Vasari’s original plan. An inscription commemorates completion during the reign of Ferdinando I de' Medici. The bell-tower, also designed by Vasari, was completed by 1572 by Giovanni Fancelli. The main altar designs were by Pier Francesco Silvani. Many alterations and additions were proposed and made over the next two centuries, including plans by Gherardo Mechini, Paolo Guidotti, Ranieri Gherardi, Torpè Donati, Alessandro Gherardesca, Florido Galli, Niccolò Matas, and Pasquale Poccianti. The final reconstruction in 1859, completed after the suppression of the order, creates the clearer interior systematization of columns we see today.

The Palazzo del Collegio Puteano (Palace of the Putean College) is a building in Piazza dei Cavalieri in Pisa, Italy. The palace occupies the whole western part of the square and makes a corner with Via Corsica street. The palace, located near to the Church of St Rocco, was built in the present form between 1549 and 1598, by joining a group of three previous houses.In 1605, it was given in perpetual rent to the Knights of St Stephen, to host some students from Piedmont, by order of Archbishop Carlo Antonio Dal Pozzo, from whom the name Puteano is derived.Between 1608 and 1609 the façade was decorated with allegoric frescoes by Giovanni Stefano Marucelli. After the suppression of the Knights, the college was closed in 1925, but it opened again in 1930 when the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa used the building as Home of the Student of the university. In 1969, the palace underwent a major restoration, and currently belongs to Scuola Normale and hosts the research center of mathematics and the guesthouse.

San Sisto is a church in Pisa, Tuscany, Italy. It was consecrated in 1133 but previously it had been already used as the seat of the most important notary act of the Pisan commune. It was built in a Pisane-Romanesque style in stone. The façade is divided in three parts divided by pilaster strips, with a mullioned window and arches in the upper part which continues on the whole exterior. Notable is the typical local decoration with Islamic ceramic basins from the 10th-11th centuries (copies; the original are in the Museum of St. Matthew in the city). The interior has a nave and two aisles, divided by columns with ancient Roman capitals, with hut-shaped ceiling. It houses also an Arabic tombstone, the copy of a 14th-century Madonna with Child and the rudder of a Pisane galley (13th-14th centuries).

San Frediano is a Romanesque-style Roman Catholic church in Pisa, Tuscany, Italy. It now functions as the official church of the University of Pisa.

San Tommaso delle Convertite is a small church in Pisa, Italy. Documents take note of a church adjacent to an annexed hospital in 1160. In 1610, the grand-duchess of Tuscany Christina of Lorraine, commissioned the convent to house rescued (converted) prostitutes, hence the name.The church and its façade were rebuilt in 1756-1758 by Camillo Marracci using designs by Ignazio Pellegrini. The church ceiling has the symbols of the patron, Christina of Lorraine.

The Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies (Italian: SSSA, Scuola Superiore di Studi Universitari e di Perfezionamento Sant'Anna) is a special-statute, highly selective public research university located in Pisa, Italy. The rector is Sabina Nuti, who took office on 7 May 2019. Before her, the rector of the school was Pierdomenico Perata, elected on 8 May 2013 after the resignation of Maria Chiara Carrozza, due to her election as Member of Parliament and appointment as Minister of Education, Universities and Research. Since January 2014, the school has been presided over by Yves Mény, until the School joined the first Federation of Universities in Italy, together with two among the other twenty Scuole Superiori Universitarie (Grandes Écoles): Scuola Normale Superiore and Scuola Superiore Studi Pavia IUSS. Before him, the president was Giuliano Amato, a former prime minister of Italy and currently judge of the Constitutional Court.The undergraduate Allievi Ordinari of the School are selected through a rigorous public examination with written and oral tests, with about 5% admission rate. They are all awarded a full government-funded scholarship which includes accommodation, canteen, research and travel grants. In exchange, they are expected to hold the highest standards in their studies at both the School and at the partner Universities.