A Brief History Of Pisa

The city of Pisa lies in the North of Italy in the region of Tuscany and has become world famous because of it's leaning tower. Pisa was first settled around 1000 BCE, but the city began to flourish under the Romans and then the Lombards* By the 11th century, Pisa had established itself as one of the great Italian Naval republics (along with Venice, Genoa and Amalfi). Their empire expanded after war with the Saracens won them Corsica, Sardinia and the Balearic Islands. This was to be the high water mark of the city state and after wars with Genoa and then Florence in the fifteenth century, Pisa found itself just another city under the Florentine sphere of influence.

La Torre Pendente

The Leaning Tower or La Torre Pendente lies on The Field of Miracles (Campo del Miracoli) and makes up the most impressive monument amongst a collection of stunning works. The other monuments are the Baptistery, the Duomo and the Camposanto (a marble walled cemetery).

The tower was commissioned in 1173 and work was begun by an unknown architect. Almost as soon as the foundations were completed, the now famous lean began. Work continued until 1185 at which time the tower had reached four stories. This pause is not very well documented, and is thought to have been because of one of the many wars with Florence. 1198 brings documentation of a bell ringer in the tower.

Work restarted on the tower in 1260 under the supervision of Giovanni di Simone. He worked on the problem of correcting the inclination until 1278, when again there was a pause in construction. Simone took the tower up a further three floors and in 1284 the six gallery floors were added.

Finally the tower was completed in 1360 by Tommaso Pisano with the addition of the belfry.

The tower is fifty six metres tall and weighs an estimated 14,453 tonnes. It has 293 steps leading to the top, is made of white marble and is decorated with numerous carvings of ships to celebrate Pisa's status as a port. Pisa is not a seaside town today due to successive layers of silt moving the coast line back a number of kilometres.

Solving The Leaning problem.

The tower began to lean almost as soon as construction began. This was due to the sandy nature of the ground the tower is constructed on. In the beginning the lean increased at the slow rate of 1mm per year, but in the decades leading up to the towers closure to the public in 1990 the tower was leaning 1mm every week. At this point it was generally thought that the tower would collapse without intervention.

Through the centuries, a number of projects have been implemented to stop the tower's lean including to no avail Giovanni di Simone's attempt to build his sections of the tower in the opposite direction to the inclination and a foolhardy attempt in 1934 when cement was injected into the base. This attempt accelerated the speed at which the lean increased.

In 1999 a scheme was implemented which would finally stabilise the tower. The purpose of this scheme was to retain the famous lean for tourism needs but to stop any additional slipping. To do this, 600 tonnes of lead weights and steel guide cables were attached to the tower as counterweights and supports. The soil under the weighted side of the tower was then removed. The tower then moved slightly back towards the vertical. At it’s most perilous angle, the tower was 5 metres off vertical. The undermining brought the tower 45 centimetres in the opposite direction.

The tower has now been judged stable and re-opened to the public on the 15 December 2001 under strict control with parties of no more than 30 people allowed up the monument at any one time.