Did You Know? Leaning Tower of Pisa Edition

Everyone knows about the famous leaning tower in Italy… or do they? Here’s a few things you might not have known about the strange landmark.

1. While most people only ever see pictures of the Leaning Tower of Pisa on its own, it is actually the bell tower of a church (Piazza del Duomo) which stands just feet away. This is what the rest of the church looks like:
2. Work on building the tower began in 1173 but was not completed until 1372 because of interruptions caused by wars at the time (it was during the first interruptions that the tower sunk into the soft soil and began to lean).
3. No one noticed that the tower was leaning until after the construction of its first stories, when its tilt became far more visible.
4. The Leaning Tower of Pisa leans at an angle of about 3.99 degrees, meaning that the top of the tower is about 3.9 meters (about 12 feet 10 inches) off center.
5. The tower was built in classic Romanesque style and stands 55.86 meters (183.3 feet) tall.
6. After discovering the tower’s tilt mid-construction, builders tried to overcompensate and built some of the upper stories shorter on one side than the other. However this made the problem even worse, as the tower now began to lean in the other direction.
7. There are seven bells in the tower, one for each note of the musical scale.
8. The Leaning Tower of Pisa was used as a military base by the Germans during WWII because the tower provided optimal surveillance of the flat Italian lands surrounding Pisa.

And there you have it, some semi-interesting facts about a badly engineered bell tower in Italy. Until next time, if you ever feel bad about your lack of successes, just remember that millions of people travel from around the world each year to see an architectural failure. Oh, and don’t forget to take the cliché picture. Cheers!