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| | Soon after beginning of the construction in 1173, Pisa tower's foundation was laid poorly. Construction was stopped and reopened only after a 100 years later. And only then it had become clear that the Pisa tower was “falling” by way of tilting towards south. From then onwards that in 1911 had started regular measurements of Pisa tower and it was recorded that tower top is bending by 1.2mm a year. As on today top of Pisa tower is tilted 5.3m from the base.
After the cathedral's Pavia bell tower collapsed in 1989, Consorzio Progetto Torre di Pisa gave engineers entrusted with stabilizing the “falling” tower. Due to the tower's tilt towards various directions in initial years, it beveled a little, like a banana. Engineers are working on foundation rather than on the construction hoping that it would return back approximately to 20cm. But it means that for the coming 800 years-old tower would remain to be “falling”.
The famous “falling” tower (Torre Pe'ldente), a bell tower (Campanile) of cathedral in Pisa city, is a part of rare architectural beauty consisting of baptistery and cemetery. If the “falling” tower were not tilting but standing strictly vertical like any other tower, its glory, most probably, would have been limited to the narrow interests of architects and historians. Whereas owing to its construction flaw, tower is well known all over the world.
Tower stretches to the height of 55m, and the inscription on it says, that foundation was laid in 1174. But as Pisa calendar was one year ahead than a standard one, actual date for the starting of the construction is to be considered as 1173 A.C. Architects of the tower were, Bonanno Pisano and Wilhelm Von Innsbruck, but both had not any chance of viewing the completion of their creation. By the way, up to the second half of 14 century, tower remained without belfry at the top.
There were assumptions that the bend was well thought by the architects in advance - for the sake of displaying their prowess and brilliant architectural ability. But this assumption is not well justified.
Most probably the other assumption is possible: architects knew that they were building on a very poor foundation and that's why they had already put in a possible slight bend in construction design.
“Falling” tower is of cylindrical shape and soars up with its seven storeys (including belfry). Its six central floors are banded with decorative arcades with a possible influence of Byzantine or Islamic architectural traditions. The issue of Islamic influence is well based because as it is not known whether the idea of separate bell tower appeared in Christian church architecture under the influence of Muslim minarets, or on the contrary, the minarets alone with muezzins on the top, called pious for praying, had their originated from Christian bell towers.
Galileo Galilee, famous astronomer, was born on 1564, in Pisa. According his own narrations, he used Pisa tower for his experiments. From the top floor he threw down various objects to demonstrate that their descending speed was independent of their mass.
Famous cathedral ensemble in Pisa is a masterpiece of Medieval Italian architecture. Creation of this tower started in 1063 century in city outskirts, with laying foundation of edifice which includes white marble campanile, bell tower and a baptistery. So far from the city square, took shape one of the outstanding works of the Middle Ages, which greatly influenced the development of Italian culture. Located in Pisa cathedral are several tombs of various historic people, among them is the tomb of German Emperor Henry VII. |
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