Why leaning tower of pisa facts

The Tower has leaned at different degrees through the years. The tower of Pisa was supposed to be 60 meters tall The highest side of the tower reaches a mere By the tower had reached a tilt of 5. The plan included a cathedral, a baptistery, a bell tower the Tower of Pisa and a cemetery. The most accredited architects of this first phase of work are Bonanno Pisano and Gherardo din Gherardo.

The second phase of construction started in , and the work is attributed to Giovani di Simone. Tommaso Pisano was the architect who finished the work. Thanks to the soft ground, it had begun to lean by the time its builders got to the third story, in Its architect and engineer tried to correct this by making the remaining stories shorter on the uphill side — but to no avail.

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. Like its name suggest, it actually does lean to one side. The tower started to lean during construction because the foundation was built on soft ground that had difficulty supporting the weight.

The lean became worse as construction continued for several decades. Between and it was stabilized and the lean was partially fixed. It was built as a freestanding bell tower for the cathedral in Pisa. On the side where the tower is lower because of the lean it stands at On the high side of the tower it stands at feet. The tower weighs about 14, tons.