Pisa Cathedral and Leaning Tower
Pisa Cathedral is built of white and grey marble with rows of small arches and columns across the whole façade – Pisan Romanesque. The bell tower, the campanile, began to lean during construction in the 1170s when the ground gave way, and was therefore given a curved form.
In the 11th century Pisa was one of the leading maritime cities of the Mediterranean. Construction of the cathedral began in 1063, and it is said to have been financed with the spoils of a naval victory over the Saracens at Palermo that same year. The master builder Buscheto, whose tomb is set into the façade, created a new type of church, and the Pope consecrated it in 1118. In the 12th century Rainaldo extended the nave westwards and built the façade. The buildings are clad in white marble and darker stone, and some of the columns are reused from ancient buildings. The baptistery followed from 1152 and the bell tower from 1173. The tower began to lean after only three storeys, when the soft clay gave way. Work then stopped for almost a century, partly because of war.
The cathedral has the form of a Latin cross with five aisles in the nave and a transept with its own apses. Over the crossing sits an oval dome. Inside the church the arcades are carried by columns, and the walls are striped in black and white, a feature that may have been influenced by Islamic architecture. Above the aisles are galleries. The façade has four storeys of small open galleries above a lower section with blind arcades. A famous bronze door by Bonanno Pisano from the 12th century shows the life of Christ. The pulpit by Giovanni Pisano from the early 14th century is one of the masterpieces of Gothic sculpture. The tower is cylindrical and ringed by open galleries, and the upper storeys were built at an angle to compensate for the lean, hence the curved form.
After work resumed in the 1270s, the tower was completed with the bell chamber in the 14th century. A fire in 1595 badly damaged the cathedral, and the ceiling and parts of the furnishings were subsequently renewed. The lean increased over the centuries, and in 1990 the tower was closed for fear that it would collapse. Over the following decade it was stabilised by carefully extracting soil from beneath the higher side, so that the lean decreased slightly and the tower could reopen in 2001. The site is known as the Piazza dei Miracoli and has been a World Heritage Site since 1987. Pisan Romanesque spread to Lucca, the countryside around Florence, Sardinia and Corsica. The tower has also become a world-famous symbol, and the legend of Galileo’s falling-body experiment there has made it part of the history of science.