According to Italy Guides and Mapsofworld.com, the Leaning Tower of Pisa is a Romanesque style cylindrical bell tower of six floors that gets its name from its conspicuous tilt to the north. The tower is known in Italian as the Torre Pendente di Pisa.
Mapsofworld.com and Endex.com both indicate that the Leaning Tower of Pisa is located in the Field of Miracles (Campo dei Miracoli) in Pisa, Italy. Its exact geographic location is 43.7167 degrees latitude and 10.3833 degrees longitude.
Endex.com shows that the people of Pisa were enormously successful at the beginning of the 12th century. Their only real conflicts were with Florence. To show off their success, the people decided to build a bell tower that would complement the nearby cathedral and baptistery--as of 2010, the tower still houses seven bells tuned to a musical scale. However, the people of Pisa met a great humiliation in 1392 when they had to sell the tower to Florence, the very city against which the tower had been built.
According to Endex.com, Mapsofworld.com and Italy Guides, experts believe that architects began working on the Leaning Tower of Pisa sometime in either 1173 or 1174. Once the architects had laid the first stone, construction repeatedly was interrupted by warfare. About 10 years after construction began (in 1184 or 1185), the tower began to lean noticeably. At this point, only three of the six floors were finished. It took until 1284 to complete the final three floors, and the belfry (the entire point of the tower) wasn't finished until 1350.
It is not clear exactly who designed the Leaning Tower of Pisa, according to Endex.com, Mapsofworld.com and Italy Guides. Traditionally, people give the credit to Bonanno Pisano, along with William of Innsbruck. Other architects such as Diotisalvi, Nicola and Giovanni Pisano and Tommano Simone worked on the tower to complete it.
The land underneath the Leaning Tower of Pisa was very unstable at the time of construction. As a result, the tower began to sink into the ground on one side. The problem was made worse by the enormous weight of the materials of the tower, which totals 14,700 metric tons according to Endex.com.
