Kinzica de' Sismondi

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.

(“The Story of Pisa” by Janet Ross and Nelly Erichsen, 1909)

The story is probably only a legend and the presumed statue of Kinzica, still visible outside Casa Tizzoni in Via San Martino, is almost certainly only a fragment of a 3rd-century Roman sarcophagus.

A more modern statue, called “Chinzica” and representing the heroine of the legend, is the work of the sculptor Angelo Ciucci and was erected in 2005 in the middle of Piazza Guerrazzi.

External links: “The Story of Pisa” by Janet Ross and Nelly Erichsen (Archive.org)

(Why are we posting about Pisa? Click here for an answer)

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