A Brief History
On December 15, 2001, the Leaning Tower of Pisa was finished with an 11 year project that cost $27 million to make sure it kept leaning, a fix that did not fix the original problem!
Digging Deeper
Of course, the Pisans were in no hurry to correct the lean of their eponymous tower, as the Leaning Tower is an enormous tourist draw, pulling in five million visitors each year.
The 185 foot high tower made of marble and stone took 199 years to build, and was intended as the bell tower for the Pisa Cathedral. The famous “lean” started during the 12th Century when the construction was underway, and slowly got worse until completion of the tower in 1372.
The soft ground at the tower site is to blame for the lean, which had gotten worse by 1993, when the stabilizing project began. By 2001, stabilization was complete, with the angle of lean changed from 5.5 degrees to 3.9 degrees.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Charles River Editors. The Leaning Tower of Pisa: The History and Legacy of Italy’s Most Unique Building. CreateSpace, 2017.
Pierotti, Piero. A Brief History of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Meter Lean Publishing, 2007.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by Joethon of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, has been released into the public domain worldwide by the copyright holder of this work.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
