If we talk about the famous bell towers of the world, the most famous is, without a doubt, the Leaning Tower of Pisa. In which city is the slope of the campanile still 3 ° 54 '? This degree is quite noticeable only in tall objects. And the bell tower seemed to freeze in its fall. Undoubtedly, the city of Pisa has many other attractions. Not for nothing that UNESCO included in its World Heritage List (at number 395) the whole Prato de Miracoli square. Its name translates as "field of miracles." Both the Baptistery of San Giovanni, the Camposanto Cemetery, and the Duomo Cathedral dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin are magical creations of medieval and Renaissance architecture. But the bell tower of Santa Maria Assunta is something special. All tourists consider it necessary to visit Prato de Miracoli to “back” it with your finger (I, Batman, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa that I saved are the most common photos of this type). But in this article we will understand why the bell tower falls, what is its height and what interesting stories are connected with it.
The city of Pisa and its attractions
The cathedral undeservedly stands in the “shadow” of its famous falling bell tower. It is imperative to go into it, as well as in the baptism of John the Baptist. But the sights of the city are not limited to one square of Prato de Miracoli. Churches - Francis of Assisi, Santa Maria della Spina, São Paulo a Ripa d'Amo, Caterina, Frediano, Stefan, San Michele, Sant Sixtus and others - are excellent examples of the Italian Renaissance. You must also visit the ancient monastery of St. Anthony. The galleries and palaces of Pisa deserve special attention: the royal Palazzo Reale, Medici, Lanfranci, Agostini, Oroolgio, Karovana, Borgo-Stretto. Pisa boasts one of the oldest universities in Europe. The complex of educational buildings is also a historical landmark. There are many museums in the city. The most famous of them: San Matteo, Villa di Corliano, Delle Sinope, Opera del Duomo, arsenals of the Medici and Fortezza di San Gallo.
Why leaning the Leaning Tower of Pisa: legend
There is a beautiful legend about the slow "fall" of the bell tower. Say, more than eight hundred years ago, in 1173, the master Bonanno Pisano took up the construction of the campaign. He created a wonderful marble tower, decorated it with arches and reliefs. But the local authorities for some reason refused to pay the promised fee to the architect. Then the annoyed master said to his creation: “Follow me!” and leaned south. And - lo and behold! - the bell tower at the same hour leaned in this direction. The frightened consuls immediately paid for everything that they owed by agreement. The Campanile froze and in this form has existed for eight centuries. Which of these is true? Only the name of the master. But Bonanno Pisano managed to build only the three lower floors of the high bell tower. And it was completed only two hundred years later, in 1360. She was decorated with sculptures in the fifteenth century, and with bells a century later.
Mistake Bug
The time has come to answer the question of why the leaning tower of Pisa is tilted. For a long time it was believed that this was the architect's intention. But this is not so. The architect initially, still in the construction plans, made a mistake in the calculations. At the estimated height of the tower, he conceived a foundation too small (only three meters wide). And besides, I did not check the soil at the construction site. The clay and clay soil under the southern tip of the tower began to erode and sag. The error was discovered five years after the start of construction, when the third colonnade ring (1178) was close to completion. The slope of the unfinished campaign was small at that time. After all, the three-story building was only eleven meters high. The roll from the vertical axis was four centimeters. But this circumstance forced Bonanno Pisano and his assistant Guillelmo from Innsbruck to quit work and hide in an unknown direction.
Attempts to complete the campaign
The problem was not so much in roll, but in the very tendency to increase deviations from the vertical axis. The work was suspended, but not so much because of difficulties with construction, but because of the war. In 1233, the fourth floor of the campaign was completed. After several more wars, the city consuls in the fourteenth century decided to resume construction. Roll at that time has grown by half a meter. Giovanni di Simoni set to work. Instead of studying the issue and finding out why the Leaning Tower of Pisa is tilted, he began to build the fifth floor. The construction was clearly at risk of collapse, and the foreman refused to continue the construction. Indeed, in the Bonanno plan, Pisano campaigned the main cathedral of Pisa as a ten-story building with a belfry on the eleventh and a roof on the twelfth. Thus, the entire structure, in order to glorify God and the city, had to be ninety-eight meters high.
Attempts to fix the error
In 1350, the famous architect Tomaso di Andrea ventured to complete the work of his predecessors. At that time, the roll was already ninety-two centimeters. The architect studied the question of why the Leaning Tower of Pisa was tilted, and realized that the matter was in the ground. It’s not possible for a person to change the soil, but construction plans can be affected. And he made certain adjustments to his calculations. He erected the next floor of the tower eleven centimeters more from the sloping side than he set a counterbalance to the roll. The master rejected the original idea of a campaign too high. He limited himself to eight tiers. The construction was crowned not by a roof, but by a bronze bell. But this rejection of four floors only delayed the inevitable fall. The degree of slope of the Campanile has been steadily growing every year.
The bell tower and Galileo
Do not forget that the leaning Leaning Tower of Pisa is equipped with a 294-step staircase inside. And now you can climb them to enjoy the bewitching panorama of the city. But much earlier than tourists, Galileo Galilei climbed the tower. In the presence of two professors of natural sciences at the University of Pisa, he threw objects of varying severity from an inclined bell tower to prove the theory of gravity.
Rescue campaign
Meanwhile, the beautiful creation of the Romanesque style continued to deviate from the vertical axis at a speed of one millimeter per year. In the twentieth century, scientists issued a verdict: if you do not take early measures, the building will collapse in forty or fifty years. Since 1994, a whole campaign has been launched to save this attraction. The height of the Leaning Tower of 56.7 meters excluded any possibility of external support. Moreover, such a frame would inevitably spoil the appearance of this ingenious creation. And therefore, scientists took up the root cause of the "fall of the tower" - the soil. In the late 90s, lead bars were placed on the northern part of the basement of the building as a temporary measure. This counterbalance slowed down the fall and even reduced the roll by half a degree. But the rescuers did not stop there. They gradually, by centimeter, removed soft clay soils from the south side and replaced them with hard soil. As a result of these works, which ended only in 2010, the leaning of the Leaning Tower of Pisa was reduced from 5 ° 30 '(in the 1990s) to the current 3 ° 54'. The general public was announced that the monument of architecture had ceased to “fall”.
The beauty of the campaign
In fairness, it should be noted that in the world there are many buildings with a clearly visible slope. For example, the degree of heel of the ancient Gothic church of Zuurhusen in East Friesland (Germany) is 1.22 degrees higher than that of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. And on this occasion, the German temple fell into the Guinness Book. But the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the photo of which has long been the "calling card" of the city, is also incredibly beautiful. She conceived as a hollow cylinder made of stone. Carrara marble in two shades of snow-white and gray makes it seem like lace. Classic capitals crown the colonnade of an elongated first floor. All subsequent six tiers are decorated with exquisite arcades and galleries. The tympanum above the entrance is crowned with a sculpture of the Madonna and child of the cutter Andrea Guardi.