The Bell Tower of the Cathedral of Pietrasanta, built in brick, is an unfinished work since the original project included a marble covering. Built between the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th century, it reaches a height of about 36 meters. At the entrance there is an extraordinary spiral staircase, unique in its kind, built under the direction of the Florentine sculptor and architect Donato Benti.

This sixteenth-century bell tower, located next to the Collegiate Church of San Martino, features a brick parallelepiped. Inside it hides an architectural treasure, a self-supporting helical staircase in brick, probably inspired by an idea by Michelangelo. This staircase, conceived as an inverse sculpture carved into a masonry monolith treated as marble, remained almost unknown for about five hundred years.

The work was created during Michelangelo's stay in Pietrasanta between 1516 and 1519, a period in which he was busy extracting marble for the facade of the church of San Lorenzo in Florence, commissioned by Pope Leo X, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent.

History attributes this work to Donato Benti, appointed by Michelangelo on 27 April 1518 as 'his true and legitimate agent' for the extraction and rough-hewing of marble in the mountains of La Cappella and in the area called Finocchiaia or Trambiserra. According to the Opera's registers, the bell tower was completed on 13 July 1519 and one of the large bells was installed.

The Pietrasanta Cathedral, a three-nave building covered in white marble, has three doors on the façade with marble lunettes sculpted in bas-relief: in the centre the Crucifixion, on the sides the Deposition and the Resurrection.

The door of the right arm of the transept, located on Via Garibaldi, is surmounted by a lunette depicting St. John the Baptist, a 14th-century work by Bonuccio Pardini.

On the facade of the Cathedral you can admire three small bas-reliefs: one depicts the emblem of Pietrasanta, while the other two attest to the domination of Genoa and Florence over the city. Above the main door stands the coat of arms of Pope Leo X.

Inside the Pietrasanta Cathedral, with a Latin cross plan, you can admire traces of different historical periods. The most significant restoration was commissioned by the Grand Duchess Cristina di Lorena in 1627, the period to which the marble altars and confessionals date back. The altarpieces and the canvases above the confessionals are works by Florentine painters of the Medici court. The large crucifix that dominates the apse and the two candle-bearing cherubs are magnificent bronze works by the Florentine Ferdinando Tacca, dated 1649.

Among the valuable works of the Cathedral, the marble pulpit is considered a masterpiece: the hexagonal cup with high-relief sculptures is attributed to Donato Benti (1508), the pedestal to Lorenzo Stagi (1504), and the staircase, finely carved from a single piece of marble, is the work of Andrea Baratta (1696). The walls and ceilings are decorated with chiaroscuro and color paintings by the Milanese painter Luigi Ademollo, made between 1823 and 1825.


In the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament there is a wooden crucifix dating back to the early 1300s. In the opposite chapel, you can admire the painting of the Madonna del Sole, patron saint of the city and the municipality of Pietrasanta. This painting, dated 1424, is the work of an anonymous artist in elegant late Gothic style, depicting the Virgin with Child between Saints John the Baptist and John the Apostle.