What makes the leaning tower of pisa interesting

The Pisa tower is one of the four buildings that make up the cathedral complex in Pisa, Italy, called Campo dei Miracoli or Piazza dei Miracoli, which means Field of Miracles. The first building constructed at Campo dei Miracoli, Pisa, was the cathedral, or Duomo di Pisa, which rests on a white marble pavement and is an impressive example of Romanesque architecture.

The next building added was the baptistery just west of the dome. Then work on the campanile began. Before the work on the campanile was completed the cemetery, Campo Santo, was built. Piazza dei Miracoli of Pisa is the most splendiferous assemblage of Romanesque architecture in Italy.

Faced in gray-and-white striped marble and bristling with columns and arches, the cathedral, with its curiously Islamic dome and matching domed baptistery, rises from an emerald green lawn. Flanking one side of the piazza, the camposanto, or cemetery, is a gracefully elongated cloister enclosing a burial ground with earth reputedly brought back during the Crusades from Golgotha, the hill where Jesus was crucified, so that noble Pisans could rest in holy ground.

Although only a third as high as the Washington Monument, it was a miracle of medieval engineering, probably the tallest bell towers in Europe. With columns ranged around eight stories, Tower of Pisa looks like a massive wedding cake knocked precariously askew by a clumsy giant guest.

You will hardly believe it but The Tower is not the only leaning building in Pisa. The particularly unstable ground underneath the city made other towers in town leaning. Among them, the bell tower of the Church of San Nicola , built around the same period of the more famous Tower. Indeed, this octoganal bell tower originates from and it also features a slight slouch on one side.

Also another bell tower belonging to the Church of St. Michele dei Scalzi is tilting. As we mentioned above, the initial tilting happened with the completion of the second floor and was about 0,2 degrees. To imagine the leaning more easily, just imagiine that the 7th and last floor of the tower was overhanging the ground by 4,5 meters! Aside from the leaning, the tower is actually curved at some point of its structure.

That happened because of the scaried engeneers who tried to fix the first tilting. Indeed, they thought they could have solved everything by building one side of the upper floors taller than the other. It is possible to reach the top of the Tower and enjoy a wonderful view of the city from there. There is a total of steps to climb and no lift available, but we must admit that the view from the top is worth the effort. The official number of steps actually sounds like a mistery. Indeed, some people count or even steps.

The only way to find it out is to clib it yourself. As we specified, the tower was actually the last element in the bigger architectural complex in Piazza dei Miracoli. The reason behind the construction of the tower and the whole complex is in the desire of the city of Pisa to show off.

Indeed, in the 11th century the city succeded in sacking the sicilian Palermo and wished to build a place where to display all the new treasures in its possess. The Province of Pisa is located in the beautiful region of Tuscany , in a very convenient geographical position The Tower of Pisa, originally designed to be an elaborate free-standing tower bell "campanile" in Italian , ended up being a marvelous engineering wonder that has been fighting gravity for almost a millennia.

This is probably one of the most asked questions However, you should not always believe what you are told and - just for this time - you should not trust even Google. It is so white that from far it looks like a cotton candy. You would never say that all that stones amount to a weight of over tons! As you walk closer details come to life and you start noticing that is it not pure white. So what is the Tower of Pisa made of? It is marble , yes The construction of the Leaning Tower of Pisa began over years ago and the whole process lasted about years Consequently, there were several persons involved in the construction of this fabulous monument and a couple of legal entities.

As there are little records of the original construction documents of the Tower, the details of "who did what and when" are not entirely clear. However, here is what we know There are steps to get from the bottom of the Tower to the bells chamber and 12 more steps to enter the Tower itself.

How do we know? The Leaning Tower of Pisa is perhaps the most famous leaning building in the World. However, its audacious statement against gravity is something that was not planned in its initial design.

To understand why the Tower started to lean, we must have a look at the geographical location of the small Town of Pisa While the Tower was built as a freestanding tower bell for the nearby Cathedral, today its purpose is very different. In fact, nowadays the bells are seldom used. It was the year when Donna Berta di Bernardo gifted sixty silver coins to purchase some of the stones for the foundation of a tower to be built nearby the newly constructed Cathedral in Pisa.

Excavation works for the foundation started right away and the first stones were laid on Thursday the 9th August The Leaning Tower of Pisa was initially planned as a perfectly straight freestanding bell tower for the nearby Cathedral. The construction of the Tower began in the year and in just 5 years they completed the first 3 floors. Until then, everything was going according to the plan.

Things started to go sideways when the foundations began to sink into the soft ground and the entire structure was suddenly leaning on one side The Leaning Tower of Pisa is one of the most famous landmarks in the World.