Pisa - Camposanto Monumentale

A legend tells, that Ubaldo Lanfranchi, archbishop of Pisa, returning home from the cruisade in 1203, brought home a shipload of sacred soil from Golgotha.

This was the start of this cemetery. The construction of the oblong cloister began in 1278, stopped after the Battle of Meloria (1284) and was finally completed in 1464.

Leonardo Fibonacci (aka "Leonardo of Pisa", "Leonardo Pisano Bigollo"), born in Pisa ~ 1170, was the most gifted mathematician of the Middle Ages. After travels to Northern Africa, where he met with many merchants and learning of their systems of doing arithmetic, he realised the advantages of the "Hindu-Arabic" system. In 1202 he completed the "Liber Abaci" which popularized Hindu–Arabic numerals in Europe.

Pisa is proud of him and so he was honored by the city with this statue in the 19th century.