Description
The Tower of Pisa, known to all as the Leaning Tower, is the bell tower of the cathedral, in Piazza dei Miracoli, and it has the most famous flaw in Italy: it leans by almost four degrees. Standing 57 meters tall, wrapped in rings of blind arches and six stories of marble loggias, it is the symbol of Pisa.
Climbers take the spiral staircase: 296 steps, between two concentric marble cylinders, up to the bell chamber. It is open to the sky, and from there you look down on the square, with the Cathedral and the Baptistery at your feet. Up there hang the seven bells, including the Pasquareccia, cast in 1262, the oldest.
At the base, in the hollow of the tower, is the Fish Room, named after a bas-relief. It has no ceiling: it is the empty hollow of the tower itself.
Work began on August 9, 1173, perhaps under Diotisalvi, the architect of the nearby Baptistery. But beneath the foundations lay soft clay, full of water: halfway up the third story the ground gave way and the building site stopped for almost a century.
In 1275 Giovanni di Simone and Giovanni Pisano resumed construction and tried to put things right: the three new stories bend the opposite way. Look closely and the tower is a little curved. Then the troubles went on.
In the 19th century water was pumped out of the subsoil, and the lean grew. In 1934 Mussolini, who called it a "national disgrace", had cement injected at the base: a disaster, the tower swayed and tilted even more.
In 1990 an international committee, led by Michele Jamiolkowski, girdled it with steel and set up to a thousand tons of lead on its north side.
The decisive move was to remove a little soil from beneath that side: the tower went back to the lean it had about two centuries earlier. It reopened on December 15, 2001, and its 3.97 degrees should stay that way for at least three hundred years.
Don't miss
• The climb to the bell chamber.
• The seven bells.
• The Fish Room.
• The loggias of the six stories, seen from below.
Did you know?
• For centuries some claimed it was built crooked on purpose: the restorations of the 19th century settled the question.
• The bell of San Ranieri was called "Justice" and tolled for the death of traitors, perhaps for Count Ugolino too.
• Two other bell towers lean in Pisa as well: San Nicola by 2.5 degrees and San Michele degli Scalzi by 5.
Climbers take the spiral staircase: 296 steps, between two concentric marble cylinders, up to the bell chamber. It is open to the sky, and from there you look down on the square, with the Cathedral and the Baptistery at your feet. Up there hang the seven bells, including the Pasquareccia, cast in 1262, the oldest.
At the base, in the hollow of the tower, is the Fish Room, named after a bas-relief. It has no ceiling: it is the empty hollow of the tower itself.
Work began on August 9, 1173, perhaps under Diotisalvi, the architect of the nearby Baptistery. But beneath the foundations lay soft clay, full of water: halfway up the third story the ground gave way and the building site stopped for almost a century.
In 1275 Giovanni di Simone and Giovanni Pisano resumed construction and tried to put things right: the three new stories bend the opposite way. Look closely and the tower is a little curved. Then the troubles went on.
In the 19th century water was pumped out of the subsoil, and the lean grew. In 1934 Mussolini, who called it a "national disgrace", had cement injected at the base: a disaster, the tower swayed and tilted even more.
In 1990 an international committee, led by Michele Jamiolkowski, girdled it with steel and set up to a thousand tons of lead on its north side.
The decisive move was to remove a little soil from beneath that side: the tower went back to the lean it had about two centuries earlier. It reopened on December 15, 2001, and its 3.97 degrees should stay that way for at least three hundred years.
Don't miss
• The climb to the bell chamber.
• The seven bells.
• The Fish Room.
• The loggias of the six stories, seen from below.
Did you know?
• For centuries some claimed it was built crooked on purpose: the restorations of the 19th century settled the question.
• The bell of San Ranieri was called "Justice" and tolled for the death of traitors, perhaps for Count Ugolino too.
• Two other bell towers lean in Pisa as well: San Nicola by 2.5 degrees and San Michele degli Scalzi by 5.