The second great square of Pisa, ten minutes south of the Leaning Tower and almost devoid of tourists, was redesigned by Giorgio Vasari in the 1560s for Cosimo I de' Medici, who founded a knightly order here to demonstrate that the Florentines now ran the city. The whole space is a single Mannerist composition, with the Palazzo della Carovana — covered in graffito frescoes of Florentine virtues — facing the small church of Santo Stefano dei Cavalieri across a calm rectangular plaza.
The Palazzo houses the Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy's most prestigious university, founded by Napoleon in 1810. Three Nobel laureates, including the physicist Enrico Fermi, walked through its door as students. The square is best at dusk, when the warm graffito wall catches the last light and the students gather on the steps.