How a Leaning Tower Became a Popular Tourist Spot: Hidden Histories of Italy
From where I stand, the view of the green lawn and Duomo-like building is in clear view. My gaze pans across the cream cathedral with exquisite arches, and the brown and white dome with marble-like busts surrounding the outer layer. My sight is interrupted by humorous sights. I chuckle to myself. Tourists. On this particular day, I can pick out 2, maybe 3 languages in my close vicinity as people scramble up and down the cement blocks that line the green lawn. As they carefully prop themselves up, they are truly a unique sight. One man lifts his leg up; another girl pinches the air; a boy leans on nothing. They are all lined up on one side of the lawn. Their loyal friends and family position themselves and snap a photo that I can only imagine is some variation of pretending to push the tower, holding the tower up, or leaning against the tower. No one seems interested in the beautiful dome or the mighty cathedral. They are infatuated with a tower: the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
As I travel around Italy, both for pleasure and cultural education, I find myself questioning the ideas surrounding what encourages tourism. This space is infused with meaning - but why is this tower so significant? Is it simply the architectural curiosity that has propelled this nearly 200 feet tall building to fame? Or is there a deeper story behind the slanted structure?
According to the New World Encyclopedia in 2018, The Tower of Pisa is actually a freestanding bell tower that is the third component of Pisa’s Campo dei Miracoli, or the “Square of Miracles”. While the architect of the tower is unknown (though speculation has inferred to be Guglielmo and Bonanno Pisano, a well-known twelfth-century resident artist of Pisa), what is known is that the slant that has become internationally famous is by accident, not plan. Jessica Morelock, a content partner for USA Today, explains that the tower was conceived by a wealthy widow, Bertha di Bernardo, in 1172 as she left 60 coins in her will to pay for the creation of this bell tower.
Morelock continues to lay out the history of this internationally known tower. In 1178, due to a poor foundation and soft and unstable soil, the tower acquired its initial lean. However, due to wars with neighboring areas, Pisa halted construction of the tower for around 100 years during which the soil settled enough to allow the tower to stay standing. Fast forward to 1372, the crowning bell tower was added, completing the construction of the building at last. In 1934, Benito Mussolini attempted to fix the lean of the tower by drilling the base and filling the foundation with mortar, which ironically caused the tower to sink further into the ground and lean more. During World War II, the tower almost met its end but was saved when an unnamed sergeant decided not follow through with an artillery strike on the tower. In February of 1964, the Italian government contemplated the repairing of the tower but realized the vital role the tilt provided in terms of tourism. While struggling through the test of time, wars, natural disasters, and overall wear, the tower has escaped destruction and still leans proudly today.
However, these external strains are not the only ones the tower has faced. An investigation by Roma Tre University found that the soil that usually is considered to be the tower’s downfall has actually allowed it to remain upright through earthquakes. The exchanges among the soft undersoil, the rigid marble material, and a height of 183 feet have sustained the tower reducing the effect of seismic vibrations. Professor George Mylonakis, from Bristol's Department of Civil Engineering, confirmed this saying: “Ironically, the very same soil that caused the leaning instability and brought the Tower to the verge of collapse, can be credited for helping it survive these seismic events”.
One aspect of the tower that has always personally sparked curiosity is the lean itself. How do architecture and gravity work together to allow this tower to stay in place?
In simple terms, the center of gravity still rests within the bounds of the base of the tower. But this is due to reconstructive work done in the 1990s and 2000s. While estimated on only be able to withstand 5.44 degrees of leaning, in 1990, the tower had a slant of 5.5 degrees, dangerously close to collapse. After the corrective work, the tower is estimated to last for a couple hundred more years.
In 2018, the New York Times published an article outlining the current state of the tower, explaining how it is the most monitored monument in the world with 100s of sensors giving hourly readings on its condition. Professor Salvadore Settis , one of the committee members who oversaw the rejuvenation of the monument reassures that the tower’s state of health is currently very good. In fact, over the past two decades, after the major stabilization project mentioned earlier, the tower leans 1.5 inches less than it did before. However, Nunziante Squeglia, engineering professor at the University of Pisa and consultant to the committee that monitors the tower, states that at this rate, the tower would take 4000 years to completely straighten up. If you haven’t visited it yet, there’s no rush.
Despite this extremely intense and riveting history, chances are if you were to approach one of the people taking countless selfies with the building, they could not tell you the tower’s story of survival. So why has this become a tourist attraction? What makes a space appeal to people across the world? What compels them to use financial resources to gaze upon a building, or anything else, capture an image and leave? What drives over one million people to visit this monument every year?
According to Pierre Benckendorff, an award-winning researcher specialising in visitor behaviour, technology enhanced learning, and tourism, an attraction is defined as “the places, people, events, and things that make up the objects of the tourist gaze and attract tourists to destinations.” What is the tourist gaze?
The term was coined by John Urry, a British sociologist and Professor at Lancaster University noted for work in the fields of the sociology of tourism and mobility. Urry (2002) describes the act of tourism as “a leisure activity which presupposes its opposite, namely regulated and organised work”. It is one manifestation of how work and leisure are organised as separate and regulated spheres of social practice in ‘modern’ societies”. Therefore, the tourist gaze “is constructed in relation to its opposite, to non-tourist forms of social experience and consciousness,” which means that it is subjective, based on the comparison of each individual life experience. The gaze is subjectively constructed, based on the individual, yet there is a continuity with the characteristics that form the gaze. As explained by Urry, “this gaze is individual but also socially organised and systematised, and directed to features of sceneries (landscape, townscape etc.), which separate them from everyday experience.” Urry’s theory is inspired by Foucault’s ‘medic gaze’, agreeing that “gazes are organized and systematized.” Therefore, the idea is that spaces that any person enters are imbued with meaning based on their past experiences of normality and novel. Of course, there is a social patterning that creates a more heightened sense of this appeal. Unnur B Karlsdóttir, an Icelandic historian, writes in conversation with Urry’s theories, stating that this tourist gaze can stem from a lingering gaze s constructed from being “visually objectified or captured through photographs, postcards and films, enabling the gaze to be reproduced, recaptured and shared”. This canonization of spaces leads to the romanticisation of an area, monument, or simply, an attraction. Most tourists have already consumed the image of places they plan to visit. So why visit at all? Pointing back to ideals of Romantiscism, the emphasis on the emotions of individual pleasures stemmed from the physical appreciation and experience of these sights. This romantic gaze is a critical incentive to promote tourism, whether tourists realize it or not when they book their flights to Italy.
With this newly acquired knowledge on the history of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the effects of the tourist gaze, I chuckle at the placement of arms, legs, and bodies of tourists as they document their trip to the romanticized monument. Then, I climb onto the small cement block and do the same. After all, appreciation of history and experiences can take on various forms.
