We all know them at least visually, if not even having visited them one day. Over time, some have even become real symbols for their city or country, or even good commercial products in their derivatives. But do we always know their history, if not sometimes their reason for being? Rarely. So let’s go to some of these famous monuments that make up our world.
Today, head to Italy and more particularly the city of Pisa with an astonishing building which is of course the most famous Pisa tower or in French Tower of Pisa.
Two centuries of work
The Tower of Pisa is originally the bell tower of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption of Pisa. A campanile being a high tower housing the bells of a church, or any other Christian religious building, built right next to it. In a way the ancestor of our current bell towers which reached their peak in the early Middle Ages, particularly in Italy where there was a certain rivalry between cities on this subject.
In short, the Tower of Pisa is the bell tower of this magnificent cathedral built at the beginning of the 11th century.e century on what is today the vast Square of Miracles (“Square of Miracles”) in Pisa.
Which does not mean, however, that the two buildings date from exactly the same period, since work on the Tower of Pisa did not begin until sixty years after the cathedral was consecrated and then spread over two centuries, between 1173 and 1372.
Listed as a UNESCO world heritage site since 1987, with the cathedral and the neighboring Baptistery of Saint John, it is the symbol of the city of Pisa as much as one of those of Italy.
Why is she leaning?
Even if the building, like its cathedral, is remarkable in its worked and sought-after style typical of Romanesque art, where stones and marble mix, it is of course its leaning aspect which attracts attention and has made its celebrity.
That said, its characteristic inclination is not really new. Since it is because of the loose and unstable ground on which it was built that the tower will begin to sag from the start of its construction.
With hindsight and our current knowledge, it must be said that a soil composed of sand, clay and water is not really ideal for establishing such a construction. Especially since on this type of uneven terrain, construction quickly tended to lean towards the more fragile side. Finally, if we add to this the undersized foundations (barely 3 meters deep) for the weight developed, we have the causes of this “malformation” which the builders of the time had obviously not perceived. A blessing in disguise for a tower that is now world famous.
Will the Tower of Pisa ever fall?
This is obviously the question that everyone is asking…
What is certain is that if nothing had been done, the tower would surely not have been there for a long time. Since the first work to remedy this inclination dates from… 1272, well before the building was completed. The architects of the time tried to compensate for the tilt by building the following floors with taller columns on the leaning side.
But it is especially in recent decades that maintenance work to keep it in place (and not straighten it… obviously) has been carried out with the pouring of tons of concrete to stabilize it, soil drainage, new reinforcements, etc. Even to the point that the building was closed for a decade for work between 1990 and 2001.
But today the Tower of Pisa seems to be stabilized and should still hold for a few centuries with this inclination which is currently around 5° between the summit and its base.
The Tower of Pisa in figures
- 1173-1372: the time needed for construction.
- 1272: first stabilization works.
- 1987: UNESCO listing of the Tower of Pisa and its cathedral.
- 55.86 meters on the south side and 56.71 meters on the north side: this is the height of the Tower (with this difference due to the inclination).
- 5°: the current number of degrees of inclination.
- 15.5 meters: this is the diameter of the tower at its base.
- 14,500 tonnes: the estimated weight of the Tower of Pisa.
- 8 and 294: this is the number of floors and steps to climb to reach the top.
- A little over 3 million: the number of visitors the building receives each year.
- €20: the full price of entry.