Chiesa di San Michele degli Scalzi

This guide to the Chiesa di San Michele degli Scalzi in Pisa follows the Pulsanese hermit monks who arrived barefoot around 1167 under a rule that banned wine, meat, study and rest, trading prayer for manual labor and medicine gardens. It traces how the nickname Scalzi stuck to the church and how, generations after the monks left, the Richard Ginori pottery works moved into their old cloister. You'll see how this ground kept answering to somebody's hands, long after the friars were gone.