On 18 June 1277, Archbishop Federico Visconti (1254-77) donates a piece of land between the city walls of Pisa and the street that runs from the Lion’s Gate to the northern flank of the Cathedral. It is here that the Opera del Duomo will build the new cemetery of the Cathedral. The date of 1277 (written as 1278 following the Pisan calendar) is also recorded as the foundation of the new cemetery, in the inscription on the left of the main entrance: “In the year 1278, at the time of Federico Visconti, the archbishop of Pisa, and Tarlato, the podestà, under the operaio Orlando Sardella, and master Giovanni, who built this.”
