Il Tirreno Giornale (PISA, Italia, Sunday 17 June 2001)
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The new Committee is born and now the watch goes to Viggiani, Sanpaolesi and Settis
Now the material restoration begins: it will cost 7 billion lire and will last 4 years |
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by Candida Virgone PISA. "I Promise that I will be the first in October at the reopening to pay twenty-five thousand lire to get on the Tower". On this satisfied phrase, Jamiolkowski has ended the morning at the Primaziale yesterday after more than a decade of work at the bedside of the leaning bell tower. Now it will be a smaller Committee, named by the minister of public works and of which he is already speaking, to take an interest in the ongoing care of the monument, ensuring safety for the next three centuries. The Committee will be composed from two Pisans, Settis Savior and Luca Sanpaolesi, and by Charles Viggiani, who continues from the beginning of the many stages of troubled work in Piazza dei Miracoli. Jamiolkowski has summarized these difficult 11 years between January 7, 1990 and June 16, 2001. "The Leaning Tower was closed," he remembered, after the collapse of the Civic Tower in Pavia: it risked structural collapse by turnover due to the increase of the inclination. They had effected two provisional and reversing interventions, in 1993 the steel belt at the section most vulnerability, between the 1st and the 2nd floor, to improve the structural safety, and in 1994 the application of counterweights, 600 tons of lead ingots that had the objective of opposing the turnover". The usual pessimists said that these ingots would have stayed on the monument forever, instead ... ". After a variety of plans, among which were ideas not new, like that of the anchorages, or the checked subsidence, that revealed itself disastrous and made the yard tremble for a whole night in which nobody slept and in which the Tower oscillated fearfully, the choice moved toward a solution, with satisfaction of the geotechnicians of the group: subexacavation, a proposal from the past that had been in 1962 by the Roman Fernando Terracina. A test was made near the baptistery, at the beginnings of 1999, a preliminary subexcavation that revealed itself positive. "The definitive subexcavation," added Jamiolkmowski, "went ahead with success in February 2000 to January 2001, with the extraction of 37 cubic meters of earth (slimy sands and sandy slimes) through 41 borings". The result was amazing, with the tower reduced its lean centimeter by centimeter at a steady rhythm. "Today," remembered the president of the Committee for the safeguard of the monument, "we are at 44 centimeters of reduction of the inclination, that goes from north toward south, with a return to the order that the monument had at the beginning the 1800's, going therefore back by two centuries and maintaining safety for another three, until 2300. Now comes the restoration from an artistic point of view, that will be implemented by the Central Institute of Restoration of the Office for the Cultural Good, through a plan that foresees the realization of a moving scaffolding, that should last 4 years, with a cost of 5-7 billion lire and for which I appeal to the government". But does it rest? By October a new system of monitoring will be needed to replace the one used for ten of years by the Committee of 14 experts who have worked durinf this time and will need to effect the restoration of the marble of the basin and of the steps; by November finally the whole yard will cool off, returning the Tower finally free from any repairs. The Committee ceases in November, replaced by the new Commmission of 3 that they will guard its safety for the future. Then the reopening will be decided for visits: for certain now, it is known that the bell tower will be reopened, by bookings, for the visit of guided tours of maximum 25-30 people for a period with a rest between each visit of 45 minutes. The price of the ticket will be 25,000 lire and will be possible to go out only on top or, perhaps, on one floor only where a mobile barrier would be installed to protect the visitors". "In the more pessimistic forecasts," concluded Jamiolkowski, "the tower will be stable for another 3 centuries increasing its inclination periodically but at reduced speed; in the most optimistic, it will stand still with small seasonal rotations". Finally a "book of instructions" on the Tower has been announced by Davide Trevisani, president of the Pisa Tower Consortium Project. "The book," he has explained, "will be useful for maintaining the bell tower in health in the future, but, above all, it will track indications in case of a need to re-install the 4 suspenderses before any operation in the ground". Professor Viaggiani, who will stay at the bedside of the monument, has announced therefore, for 2003, the printing of 3 volumes of about a thousand pages each, in which the adventure of the Tower in this decade will be told. The first volume will have characters desribed, the other two will be a detailed technical account detailed of the work". Translated by Gary Feuerstein, 11 August 2001, from the Il Tirreno article Building Homepage
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