San Michele degli Scalzi, Romanesque church in Pisa, Italy

San Michele degli Scalzi is a church in eastern Pisa whose unfinished facade has a marble lower section from the nearby San Giuliano quarries and an exposed brick upper gable with a 17th-century rose window. Five blind arches on columns frame three lunetted portals; the central architrave carries a Byzantine relief of the angelic hierarchies, and the lunette holds a copy of a 1203-1204 blessing Christ, the original being in the Museo di San Matteo. The interior has three naves of eight bays, a single semicircular apse and timber trusses.

An oratory is documented on the marshy bank of the Arno by 1025. In 1178 the adjoining convent was assigned to Benedictine monks from Santa Maria di Pulsano sul Gargano, the barefoot "Scalzi", and the first rebuilding of the church was completed in 1204. The Lateran Canons took over in 1463, adding a coffered ceiling in 1596; the Olivetans followed in 1774. Bombing in the Second World War destroyed the right nave, and the 1949 flood caused further damage.

The name refers to the Pulsanese Benedictines who once inhabited this place and went barefoot as a spiritual practice. Visitors can observe how the medieval interior and its religious artworks reflect the way these monks lived and worshipped.

The church is open on most weekdays, with varying hours depending on the day of the week. It is best to visit in the morning when light conditions are optimal for viewing the details of the marble facade.

The bell tower leans about 5 degrees toward the Arno, more than the city's famous tower. Its upper brick tiers carry 12th-century Islamic ceramic basins, now replaced by copies, and the three bells recast in 1954 by the Picasso foundry of Genoa are struck by fixed hammers so the tower does not sway.