Pisa's Café dell'Ussero: rendezvous for artists ?

Question

In May 1845 John Ruskin prolonged his stay in Pisa in order to draw the early 15th -century Palazzo Agostini on the Lungarno, or river bank, of the Tuscan city. "There is nothing like it in Italy that I know of", he said; and, writing to his father, he added: "They have knocked a great hole in the middle to put up a shield with a red lion and a yellow cock upon it for the sign of a consul, and they have knocked another at the bottom to put up a sign of a soldier riding a horse on two legs, with inscription All'Ussero Café." The sign mentioned by Ruskin was short-lived, since it was thrown into the River Arno the following year by liberal students who could not even stand the sight of that Hussar. It reminded them of Austrian rule over partitioned Italy; but the Café, one of the oldest in Europe, is still there. It has been there since 1775, as attested by copies of documents, letters, and contracts exhibited on its walls, which mention the presence of a Café on the ground floor.

Answer 1

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