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—— ON THIS DAY ——
AUGUST 9, 1173
Pisa, Italy
853 years ago
The Leaning Tower of Pisa, the freestanding bell tower whose construction began on August 9, 1173, and which began tilting during building because of a shallow foundation set in unstable ground.
On August 9, 1173, workers laid the foundation for a grand new bell tower beside the cathedral in the wealthy Italian city-state of Pisa. At the height of its maritime power, Pisa wanted a campanile that would outshine anything its rivals could build, a gleaming white marble tower to crown its cathedral complex, the Piazza dei Miracoli, or Place of Miracles. What they got instead became one of the most recognizable structures on Earth, for reasons no one intended.
The trouble began almost at once. The tower was built on soft, unstable subsoil, a former river estuary, with a foundation only about three meters deep. By the time construction reached the second and third floors, around 1178, the structure had begun to sink on one side and lean. Work stopped, partly because of the tilt and partly because Pisa became embroiled in wars, and the unfinished tower stood for the better part of a century.
—— MARQUEE EVENT ——
The Piazza dei Miracoli, the Place of Miracles in Pisa, the cathedral complex whose leaning bell tower became one of the most visited and photographed monuments in the world.
The long pause may have saved the tower. It allowed the underlying soil to settle and compress, giving the structure a firmer, if crooked, base. When building resumed, later engineers tried to compensate for the lean by constructing the upper floors slightly taller on the sinking side, which is why the tower appears subtly curved when viewed from certain angles. The bell chamber, the eighth and final stage, was completed around 1370, nearly two centuries after the first stone was laid.
The tower kept leaning throughout its existence, the tilt increasing a little each year. By the twentieth century it had become dangerous, and there was genuine fear that it might eventually collapse. A major engineering project in the 1990s and early 2000s removed soil from beneath the higher side, easing the tower back toward vertical by a small but crucial amount and stabilizing it. Experts believe it is now safe for centuries to come, still leaning, but no longer falling.
What was meant to be a monument to Pisan pride became something its builders never imagined: a global icon precisely because of its flaw. Galileo, a native of Pisa, is said, perhaps only in legend, to have dropped weights from the tower to study gravity. Millions of visitors now come each year to pose beside it. A tower that would have been one of countless handsome medieval campaniles instead became immortal because it did not stand up straight.
—— WHY THIS MATTERS ——
The tower is a monument to unintended consequences. Meant to be a symbol of Pisan power and perfection, it became world-famous because of an engineering failure. Few structures illustrate so vividly how a flaw can become the very source of an object's fame and endurance.
Its survival is a triumph of engineering across the centuries. From the medieval builders who curved the upper floors to the modern engineers who eased it back from the brink of collapse, the tower stands only because generations of people found ways to keep a fundamentally unstable structure upright.
It is a living link to the medieval world. Rising over eight centuries, from the height of Pisa's maritime republic through wars, restorations, and near-collapse, the tower connects the modern visitor directly to the ambitions and skills of the twelfth century.
—— THE TAKEAWAY ——
On August 9, 1173, Pisa began building a bell tower to outshine its rivals. It started tilting before the third floor was done and has been leaning ever since. The flaw made it immortal. Two centuries to finish and eight more to nearly topple, and it still stands, crooked and famous the world over.
—— QUOTE OF THE DAY ——
“Pisa built a tower to boast, and got a wonder because it went wrong.”
— A common observation about the Leaning Tower of Pisa
—— OUR QUIZ OF THE DAY ——
How much do you know about the Leaning Tower of Pisa, why it tilts, the centuries it took to build, and the modern effort to keep it from collapsing?
