Italy

The Leaning Tower of Pisa

Italy, best known for it's food, Mario and of course the Romans and their culture. We've all heard of the Colosseum and the bloody buts of fights to the death within it or the thousands of animals that were captured and forced to feed on humans. You might have heard about the the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Funnily enough the tower is in the city of Pisa, in Tuscanny, central Italy.

Originally the credited architect for the tower was Gugliemo and Bonanno Pisano. Pisano was born in Pisa, he was famous for his bronze casting skills. He later moved to Sicily to continue his work but returned home on his deathbed to die at his birthplace. A recent study in 2001 showed that another architect by the name of Diotisalvi. This is believed due to the time of the construction and the similarities in this tower and other bell towers he had designed.

The tower is from limestone and lime mortar, the outside was coated in marble. The limestone is what has enable this landmark to survive this long. The rock is flexible enough to withstand the pressure of the lean without cracking. An incredible foresight by the architect or a very lucky one.

This tower was meant to be the bell tower for the nearby cathedral. After they built the first two floors in 1173, they realised their mistake, they had built on an unstable topsoil. The construction was left for five years. they then added the third floor but unknown to them the reason why the structure was leaning, because of a dense clay mixture that couldn't fully support the tower. They then waited 100 years to hopefully let the soil harden. This was unsuccessful so they continued on building four more floors making the monument lean even more.

Over the next 700 years, various architects and political leaders tried to fix or solve the lean. It was finally opened to the public in 1990 after being deemed safe.


Photo credit:http://www.lightmatter.net/gallery/albums.php and http://www.mackenzie.co/