Leaning Tower of Pisa

Leaning Tower of Pisa is a tower in Italy, a campanile of white marble. It derives its name due to it leans off the perpendicular. It is 178 ft in height and leaning 14 ft. off the perpendicular.

The leaning tower of Pisa was commenced in 1152, and was not finished till the fourteenth century. Tho cathedral to which this belongs was erected to celebrate a triumph of the Pisans in the harbor of Palermo in 1063, when allied with the Normans to drive the Saracens out of Sicily. It is a circular building, one hundred feet in diameter and 179 feet in extreme height, and has fine mosaic pavements, elaborately carved columns, and numerous bas-reliefs. The building is of white marble. The tower is divided into eight stories, each having an outside gallery of seven feet projection, and the topmost story overhangs the base about sixteen feet, though, as the center of gravity is still ten feet within the base, the building is perfectly safe. It has been supposed that this inclination was intentional, but the opinion that the foundation has sunk is no doubt correct. It is most likely that the defective foundation became perceptible before the tower had reached one-half its height, as at that elevation the unequal length of the columns exhibits an endeavor to restore the perpendicular, and at about the same place the walls are strengthened with iron bars.

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