Tower of Pisa

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Abstract

In 1173, Bonnano Pianso had begun construction of the Tower of Pisa. The job carried on until 1178, and
then put on hold once the masons reached the fourth level. When construction resumed a century later, a
slight tilt to the north was noticed, and from this moment on, the Tower had begun to lean, shifting from
north to northeast, and finally south. The Tower of Pisa’s purpose was to house the bells of the cathedral
of the Piazza dei Miracoli, a site with buildings dating back to the Middle Ages. The Tower’s quality of
stone is excellent: most have no mortar between them because the bond is dependent on the high quality
of workmanship. The foundation block is made of masonry cemented with San Giuliano mortar.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa also helped Galileo during his years of exploration. He used it as an example
and experiment for his work on gravitational forces. The Tower’s lean helped prove that everything falls at
the same rate, regardless of weight, as long as they have the same air resistance.
Since 1911, the Tower has shifted approximately one twentieth of an inch each year, with inches adding
up each year. During the winter of 1999, the Tower shifted more than a millimeter south in one day due to
the intense weather. The Tower has been closed to tourists since 1989.

Key Terms

Estuary: Where a river meets the sea.

Water Table: Underground surface beneath which earth materials, as soil or rock, are saturated with
water.
Ingot: A mass of metal cast in a convenient form for shaping, remelting, or refining.
San Giuliano Mortar: The product of a medieval technique for preparing high-strength mortars.

Brief History of the Tilt

Standing tall 185 feet in the air, the

Photo Credit: Paul Parfitt

Leaning Tower of Pisa is tilting at an angle of five and a half degrees southward: approximately sixteen
feet out of vertical. Over the years, many experts have searched to find the cause of the lean of this world
wonder. It has been found that about 10,000 years ago, the location of the Tower was a river estuary.
Therefore, the water and the tide were constantly flowing in and out of the site, depositing layers of soft
sand and silt. The reason the Tower has sunk into the ground is due to the soft, sand-like texture of the
soil. The reason the Tower tilts southward is because the soil under the south side of the monument is
more compressible than on the north side. Since 1911, when measurements of the lean began, the Tower
has shifted approximately one-twentieth of an inch each year. Engineer and site manager of the
restoration project, Paolo Heiniger says, “the Tower has begun tilting at a rate of about one-tenth of an
inch per year and accelerating. At this rate, the tower would be in danger to fall in twenty to twenty-five
years.” (Popular Science, 2000, pg. 72) The Tower was built in stages over two hundred years and the
builders realized from the beginning the structure was shifting. Attempting to correct the lean, the builders
put taller pieces of stone on the south side and shorter on the north side. For example, the bell tower has
six steps up to the base on the south side and only four steps on the north side. As a result, the tower is
slightly shaped like a banana.

While many strategies to stabilize the Tower have been under consideration, there have also been actions
taken which have pushed the Tower closer to collapse. The base of the columns on the ground level had
sunk below ground and in 1838 Alessandro Gherardesca dug into the ground in order for visitors to see
the columns as they were intended to be seen. He dug down about one and a half to two meters down
straight into an area where a water table existed. Water came spouting out of the ground and the top of
the Tower moved three quarters of a degree south. In 1934, when Benito Mussolini came to power, the
Tower was interfered with once again. His regime rejected the leaning of the Tower as an “inappropriate
symbol” and they drilled holes through the floor and poured almost two hundred tons of concrete into the
foundation. As a result, the Tower lurched southward a tenth of a degree.

Causes of Failure

The failure of the Leaning Tower of Pisa is due primarily to the location of the tower and the instability of
the ground underneath the foundation. During its 200 year construction the tower had begun to show
signs of instability but the builders persisted and as time lapsed the tower leaned more and more resulting
in a fifteen foot vertical discrepancy at the peak. The weight of the tower compressed the ground beneath
beginning with a seven meter layer of silt and thirty meters of clay under the foundation. An area of clay
under the south side of the structure is softer than its counterparts causing the infamous lean towards the
south. Further depression of the clay below the foundation is a result of consolidation.

The foundation is not the sole factor of instability in the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Full of debris and mortar
and peppered with cavities, the circular walls of the tower are weak and a contributor to its
precariousness. Some of these vacancies in the walls are the result of scaffolding put in place either
during construction or during the attempts to right the tower. The stones consisting primarily of limestone
are of low resistance and the marble facing of only 25 centimeters creates an unstable framework for the
tower. Although the walls have a thickness of nine feet in most places, they taper to just over a yard in
some places to accommodate the spiral staircase that winds up the tower.

Various strategies were put into place to save the tower from collapse but many of them worsened its
condition. Since the tower had begun to lean before construction was complete, the bell tower was added
at an opposing angle in an attempt to decrease the rate of compression on the south side. Unfortunately
the added weight caused the tower to lean even more, and without addition of the bell tower it would have
remained at an angle of 1.5 degrees. Because it began to lean during construction, the builders were
prompted to use larger stones on the southern side. This, coupled with the addition of the bell tower at an
angle, is what gives the tower its banana shape. Many attempts to save the tower from collapse have
been unsuccessful and at times detrimental to the overall structure—at best they have been temporary
fixes.
Conflicting Strategies

Over the years, there have been many strategies of how the tower could be righted. Some suggested
ideas involved digging out portions beneath the tower, which would allow the weight of the tower to
balance itself out. Other schemes were more complex and involved steel buttressing and jacks to
physically lift the tower and move it back to center, or even in another case these jacks would be used to
rock the tower until it is righted. Some believe that the best way to stabilize the structure is through the
use of bolts, while some prefer pre-tensioned rings. There are many different opinions on what is the best
plan of attack to right the tower, some of which have been met with controversy while others have been
accepted and implemented.

Attempts to Prevent the Tower from Collapse

Drawing Credit: Caitie Hutton

While many strategies and attempts have been made to prevent the tower from ultimate destruction, none
have been entirely successful. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is the most monitored building in the world;
approximately 120 devices are used by scientists to not only support the Tower but to measure its
movement and responses. For example, a circular sensor runs around the inner walls and is used to
register vibrations caused by something as small as a footstep while metal clamps detect any change in
the Tower’s large cracks. Pendulums measure tilt and strain gauges monitor stresses on the walls. Also,
at select moments, steel bands have been wrapped around the Tower, like a belt, to support the stones.
While these various instruments monitor the Tower at all times, there have been many attempts to
straighten the Tower. However, the Leaning Tower of Pisa is one of the largest tourist attractions in the
world, and the visitors cannot be upset with a visible difference in tilt. In July 1993, engineers loaded 600
tons of lead ingots on the north side of the Tower to counteract the lean, a method that has successfully
brought the Tower back almost an inch. Yet, these lead piles are extremely unattractive and hinder the
splendor of such a beautiful monument. In order to remove the lead weights and replace with them
invisible cables a concrete ring will be wrapped around the base of the Tower and attached to anchors.
These anchors will be secured in the solid bedrock 130 feet down and will replace the push of the
unattractive lead weights. Yet, at 3:30 A.M. on September 6, 1995, the Tower reacts and lurches a 16th of
an inch south, moving what it would normally move in a year. Consequently, an attempt to rid of the ugly
lead weights resulted in the addition of more lead weights.

Another effort to save the Tower from collapse has been through soil excavation: removing soil from the
north, higher, side. The final goal of this endeavor is to reduce the lean by 10%, or a half of a degree,
north which will add at least 300 years to the Tower’s life. This endeavor has proved to be successful.

Similar Cases

Attention was focused on the Tower of Pisa after the nearby Pavia Civic tower collapsed in 1989. The
Civic Tower was another historical tower and collapsed due to weakening of the old masonry along with
natural shrinkage of the mortar over time. This greatly concerned the Italian government, and made them
extra cautious of Pisa’s condition. Pisa was then closed off to the public for safety reasons and testing.

Cracking of the Tower’s masonry has also been a concern ever since the 1902 collapse of the St. Mark
bell tower of Venice.
The **Transcona Grain Elevator** failure is often associated with the Tower of Pisa because it is a very
similar foundation failure. The Grain Elevator was also placed upon clay, and three years after its
construction, it began to shift. Also like the Tower of Pisa, it moved as a monolithic structure and only
received minor cracking. However, the Elevator did not come to rest until the tilt had reached 27 degrees,
way more severe than Pisa’s 5.5 degrees. When research was done to figure out why the failure had
happened, the compression of the soil beneath the structure was to blame just like at Pisa.

There are also less severe cases of leaning structures than the Transcona Grain Elevator that can be
related to Pisa. Structures in China and India are less famous but do have similar tilt to Pisa’s. Some
buildings tilt but the angle is so slight and the building remains stable that it goes unnoticed. Towers can
have a slight lean as long as the structure is tilted evenly throughout its axis and remains stable, and not
tilting starting out at higher point on the tower which could throw it off of its axis.

Environmental Influences

Drawing Credit: Colette Aboussouan

In addition to the structural and planning fallacies, the Leaning Tower of Pisa has experienced a plethora
of environmental obstacles and threats to its stability. The most obvious environmental factor is the
danger of wind forces. The tower is not a candidate for wind engineering evaluation because it is heavy,
short, and rigid. However, due to the inclination of the structure and the existing soil pressures, building
collapse due to wind is a viable threat.

Winter is the most dangerous time of year for the Leaning Tower of Pisa because the cold temperatures
cause the stones on the south side to compress, increasing the tower’s tilt. On the contrary, summer
temperatures cause the stones to temporarily expand allowing the tower to straighten ever so slightly.
Daily changes in temperature move the tower in a circular motion of roughly a 100th of an inch across in
diameter, however this has been known to increase during rainstorms. Increased precipitation during
autumn and winter as well as heavy storms cause the water table to rise more on the north side, pushing
the tower further towards the south. This contributes to the fluctuating instability of the building’s
foundation.

Earthquakes are another possible cause of stress on the structure that could lead to collapse. Seismic
tremors pose a threat to most structure including those damaged during an earthquake in Assisi. The
Leaning Tower of Pisa is under an even greater threat because of the stress caused by its inclination, and
the volatility of its foundation. Although the region of Pisa has moderate seismic activity, it would not take
much to collapse the tower.