Background Description
posted by Hotel DiStefano, Pisa
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posted by Hotel DiStefano, Pisa The Tower of Pisa (clickable images) 
The Bell Tower, or Leaning Tower, is known throughout the world for its architectural beauty and the unusual inclination that is a true miracle of statics. Initiated in August 1173 (1174 according to the calculation of one Pisan), as documented in the inscription to the right of the entry, the construction was interrupted half way into the third floor because of a sporadic yeilding of the ground.  The authority of this first phase of the work, attributed by Giorgio Vasari to Bonanno, and accredited by the recovery in the vicinity of a tombstone with his name (today laid in the atrium of the tower), is all hypothetical: recent studies credit the plan to Gherardo of Gherardo.In 1275 the work, in which Giovanni di Simone and Giovanni Pisano participated, undertook the addition of another three floors in a direction that bent opposite to the inclination, in an attempt to correct the inclination. In the second half of the Thirteenth Century, perhaps the work of Thomas Pisano (1350-1372), came the addition of the bell cell (top floor containing the bells). 
Circular in plan, entirely dressed in white marble, the Tower presents a decorative complement to that of the apse of the adjacent Cathedral. Above the first story of blind arcades on half columns are six orders of loggettes (floors) and the bell cylindrical cell, of lesser diameter, with openings set in blind arcades and cornices with architectural decoration.At the sides of the entry door, above which is a Lady with a Child attributed to Andrea Guardi (now in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo), are two figured bands (monsters and animals) and a bas-relief (ships and a lighthouse), a copy of the more ancient one on the wall beside the door of S. Ranieri. 
The inclination of the tower, due to yeliding of the ground (other examples in Pisa are the bell tower of S. Nicola and S. Michael of the Barefoot), is about 5° and 30' toward South (corresponding to a precipice measured between the 1st and 7th story of about 2.95 m) with a sinking at the middle of the base of m 2.25.The inclination as regards the vertical increases an average each year of around 6 seconds, equal to an increase in the precipice of about 1 mm; from 1990, interventions of consolidation have reduced the inclination by several millimeters. The interior of the bell tower has the form of a big cylindrical well. A spiral staircase, composed of 294 steps, open to each floor from an exit toward the corresponding external annular gallery, climbs to the terrace above the last floor where, within the bell cell, are seven bells datable from the XVII century to the XIX century. Here Galileo effected his experiments regarding the fall of gravity. The bell cell offers an excellent, if evocative, panorama of the city and the territory. Alternate Translation added by Hotel DiStefano in April 1998: The Leaning Tower The construction begun in 1173 and it must have been suspended at the completion of the third ring, around ten years later, since a subsidence of the soil of between 30 and 40 cm. had thrown the tower out of the perpendicular, causing an initial overhang of circa 5 cm. More than a century after the laying of the foundation stone, was once again begun (1275) by Giovanni di Simone, who added three more levels, correcting the axis of the Campanile. In 1284 the six stories of loggias were to all effects finished, bringing the height of the building to 48 m., and employing a technical expedient that was meant to diminish, at least optically, the effects of the inclination, accomplished by raising the galleries of the upper floors on that side. At the time the inclination of the Tower was more than 90 cm. The tormented vicissitudes of the Tower did not, as one might expect, greatly worry those who were involved in the construction and completion. The long intervals between building activity were dictated, most likely, by the need of letting the Campanile 'rest', but above all by letting both the foundations and the ground on which they rested settle down. In a certain sense it can be said that the subsidence of the soil and the consequent inclination had, on the whole, been foreseen. At the beginning of the 14th century the bells were placed at the sixth level, in the large opening still visible in the marble cylinder beyond the loggia. Between 1350 and 1372 Tommaso di Andrea Pisano (according to Vasari) terminated the installation of the belfry on the summit of the sixth order of loggias, increasing the correction of the axis, and thus diminishing the load on the side that was in inclination, which in the mean while had become fixed at 1.43 m. Conceived of not only as a bell tower, but also as a belvedere for the square below - from the earliest times the loggias have served as 'grandstand' for religious events and fairs - it rises 58.36 m above the level of the foundation, just under 56 m over the level of the countryside, and its inclination, measured at the base, is over 4 m. The average subsidence of the base is 2.25 m, while the progressio of the overhang, despite all attempts so far made to bring it to a halt, is about 1.2 mm per year. Hotel Distefano,Pisa http://www.hoteldistefano.pisa.it/town/pagine/torre2.htm E-mail Reservations for Hotel DiStefano Leaning Tower of Pisa Information Leaning Tower of Pisa History Leaning Tower of Pisa Articles Leaning Tower of Pisa News Leaning Tower of Pisa Web Links Leaning Tower of Pisa Humor Leaning Tower of Pisa Gallery |