Pisa
The cathedral of Pisa, Italy, and its campanile (bell-tower), the famous Leaning Tower. The construction of the cathedral began in 1063 and the campanile was added in 1174. The tower was intended to stand upright, but assumed its tilted position while being built.
City in Tuscany, Italy, on the River Arno, 70 km/43 mi west of Florence; population (2001 est) 85,400. Industries include tourism, engineering, and the production of pharmaceuticals, glass, and textiles. Its famous campanile (bell tower), the Leaning Tower of Pisa (1173; repaired 1990–2001), is 55 m/180 ft high and about 4.1 m/13.5 ft off the perpendicular, the foundations being only about 3 m/10 ft deep and built on unstable ground.
History
Archaeological finds testify to the presence of the Etruscans in the area between the 6th and 3rd centuries
BC. The port at the edge of the settlement presented an ideal place to locate a navy, and the Roman fleet used the port from which they launched attacks against Corsica, Sardinia, and the coastal zones of Spain. In order to protect Pisa, they built walls to surround the settlement. With the fall of the Roman Empire, Pisa passed first under the Germanic Lombards and then under the Franks. By the 11th century the city was a powerful and independent maritime republic, and included Corsica, Sardinia, and the Balearic Islands in its dominions. The crushing defeat of the Pisan fleet by the Genoese off Merolia in 1284 robbed the town of its power. In 1399 it came into the hands of the Visconti family. As a Ghibelline centre in the 13th and 14th centuries, Pisa was also persistently at war with Florence, to which it fell in 1406. The city regained its independence in 1494 but fell again to Florence in 1509. Pisa was subsequently ruled by the Medicis who built the Aqueduct of Asciano (1601) and the Canal of the Navicelli between Pisa and Livorno (1603). In the early 1630s a fierce plague raged through the city. Since the 16th century the population has declined considerably. Pisa suffered devastating destruction during World War I and was further effected by flood of the Arno River in 1966.
| The Leaning Tower of Pisa started to tilt when only 10.6 m/35 ft high. It was built in The Piazza dei Miracoli, which stands on over 70 m/230 ft of alternating layers of clay and sand, and is slowly sinking with greater subsidence in certain areas; the tower leans because it was built on one of these softer sections. Attempts were made to straighten the tower by constructing the upper levels with blocks of marble of varying width, and by the 10th floor the blocks were 10 cm/4 in thicker on the north side than on the south. The tower presently leans 5.5° from the vertical, though the angle varies throughout the day because the tower is affected by the heat of the sun. In 1990 the Italian government set up a programme to reduce the tower's tilt by 10% and in 1995 a concrete ring was built around the base and anchored to a layer of sand at a depth of 50 m/164 ft. In 1999, specialists devised a solution that involved slowly removing soil from the north side of the tower's foundation so that it would right itself; the procedure reduced the lean by 50 cm/20 in, returning the tower to the lean it had in 1838. The tower was officially reopened in June 2001, and opened to tourists in November 2001. |
| Other buildings include the marble cathedral (1063), which contains a pulpit (1260) by Italian architect and sculptor Giovanni Pisano, and the baptistery (1153). The Campo Santo, a 13th-century burial place surrounded by a cloister, contains frescoes, some by the 15th-century Florentine painter Benozzo Gozzoli. Educational institutions include the University of Pisa (1338). A regatta is held annually on 17 June, the feast day of the city's patron saint. Galileo Galilei, the 16th century Italian mathematician, astronomer, and physicist was born near Pisa. He studied and lectured at the University of Pisa. |
Pisa
| Province of north central Italy in northeast Tuscany region; capital Pisa; area 2,448 sq km/945 sq mi; population (2000 est) 386,300. |
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